Wrocław

I spent some time in Wrocław, Poland lately, so drifting away from Berlin posts for a few! By the way, I spell it like vrote-swaff in my head to help with pronunciation. It's a lovely city, a little sprawling in some parts so best either for a weekend if you only want to see the very center with the old town, or for a couple weeks if you want to explore different neighborhoods. Overall, it had lots of great cafes, so you can imagine what I spent most of the time doing (recommendations to follow!).

It also has very affordable public transit and is on a beautiful stretch of the Oder with boat rides aplenty. In a nonrepresentative survey of having asked random people on the street things, most people speak English. There are more and better iced lattes on average (as compared to many parts of Berlin) and drivers are really good at stopping at crosswalks and not doing a rolling stop or worse towards pedestrians. Since it's been pretty hot lately, I also noticed a little more air-conditionining than in Berlin, which I don't generally love but do appreciate once it's over 90°F. Usually the train is a straight shot from Berlin, but there's been some inconvenient construction lately things took a bit longer.


For an intro to the city, this bold yellow castle is the train station