Kraków, piwo i czekolada Powlekany Śliwki

On Saturday morning I awoke at 4.15am with a massive hangover. That pint of Hooky Bitter must have caused it, I explained to my not so sympathetic wife. Anyhow we managed to get ourselves ready into a mini cab and out to Gatwick to get our dawn service BA shuttle to Krakow, Poland. I have to admit, based on my encounters with the Polish drunks of Brook Green I was expecting to see lots of nutters and drunks drinking tramp juice out of coffee mugs in a third world setting. Fortunately I was disappointed, but relieved to find that Krakow is an amazing unspoiled European city which is bustling with culture and people having a good time. The main market square is lined with chic cafes and restaurants serving generous portions of excellent food and beer at what I consider to be 1970's prices. Krakow to me seemed similar to how people describe Prague and Budapest ten years ago before they became crowded with busloads of tourists.

In terms of beer I had all the usual suspects that you find in your off licence. Okacim, Tyskie and my personal favourite Zywiec (pronounced Ja-vice).

There are two Zywiec beers that are widely available, the Pilsner style lager (5.6% abv) and the Baltic Porter, which weighs in at a hefty 9.3% abv. I got pretty tanked up after drinking a pint of Okacim Mocne, 2 pints of Zywiec Pilsner and 3 pints of Zywiec Porter. This was a grand prelude to seeing poor Ricky Hatton get the stuffing knocked out of him.

Besides getting smashed on super strength baltic porter (which is really good), the only thing of note that I can think of now was the food. I have included a picture of my pork knuckle below. It was soft skinned (not so good), but covered in an awesome BBQ sauce on top of a bed of fried kraut. Nice.