I've been to Poland a couple of times before, Krakow back in March 2016 and Warsaw in July 2022. Krakow being a beautiful city with loads of history was on my 'return to' list as there were things I missed previously like the famous Wieliczka Salt Mines and places I wanted to return to like Auschwitz-Birkenau.
But more about these later............

Previously a journey to a London airport was required to get to Krakow, which to be honest for a short trip adds a lot more travelling and quite a bit more money. This sometimes puts me off! However, thanks to Ryanair our small, local airport 'Bournemouth' Krakow is now much easier and quicker to get to! Plus the flight times are very acceptable!

Usually I like to have a small plan or list of things to see and do, and then as we say 'wing it' to see what else is available at the destination. But as this trip was only for 4 nights I pre booked everything in advance and hoped the weather was kind and that it all went to plan.

I did some research online and to be honest prices varied so little I opted to book everything we did through Booking.com as I've used them many times before and I'd already booked our room with them. So this seemed an easy, obvious choice, or so I thought!

But.............. I almost got conned!

The room we used was booked three ish months before we left, then around a month before departure I received an email from Booking.com with a message from the accommodation saying a card issue had occurred during my booking and that I needed to re-do the booking or it would be lost. I didn't think this was a problem as the messages came direct. So I followed the link and did the stuff required but strangely my bank flagged the payment up as suspicious. As I thought this was strange I instantly froze my credit card, luckily this was the right thing to do as shortly after blocking the credit card someone had tried taking money from this card! I've since found out that this occurs regularly and Booking.Com can't seem to control it! So be very careful.

Read a BBC news article about this here.
 
Anyway, lets see what occurred when we got to Krakow..............