Around The World in 66 Days: 05/31/17

Amazingly, our flight from Windhoek, Namibia back to Johannesburg, South Africa on British Airways was not affected by the worldwide IT outage that was occurring at BA headquarters in London as we checked in for our flight. They hand-wrote everything: tickets, boarding passes and luggage receipts...and we were within ten minutes of landing at JNB right on schedule. We're assuming the pilots were either on a different IT system or flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules) that day. We elected, by plan, to overnight at J'burg in order to insure we had no problems catching the next day's evening flight back to Paris. So, uncharacteristic for dining on our "trip of a lifetime", we got a pizza at the J'burg airport, a bottle of wine and just chilled out at the same hotel that we stayed when we commenced the journey to Namibia. It was very convenient...right at the airport to walk to, and comfortable. Another plus is that we found a "laundry\cleaners" right there at the airport terminal that, for ZAR100 per kg, would wash, dry and fold our nasty, sand infested clothes. So, after some conversions from kg to lbs and ZAR to $...Sold! This was not only a great deal, but also freed us up on our scheduled washing day in Poland. So, for US$48 we dropped off the laundry, picked up our pizza and got a great night's sleep...hopefully not our last one on this incredible continent. The next morning at noon we appeared at the airport laundry where the nice young African lady had us all ready to go. She had earned a nice tip...and was overwhelmed and near tears that we delivered one into her hand.

Destination Krakow, Poland, was quite a journey. Easy overnight flight to Paris on the same Airbus 380 that we rode down on, but then an extended layover in Paris and on to Amsterdam for more wait time until arriving at 2230 in Krakow. Thank goodness for partner crown rooms at every stop which provided comfortable seats, very good food and plenty of drinks. We were pre-arranged to be met...and were done so...at the John Paul II (he was from here...remember?) airport by a very nice young polish man in a Mercedes van who was eager to practice his English on us. So, at 2330 we arrived at the Hotel Santi, a beautiful old restored hotel from the 1700's right in the middle of old town Krakow. We both were exhausted from the sixty-six hour trip from Windhoek so we so slept so well that Bill didn't even get up to potty at his usual 0400 time!

We woke up at 0800 to see a beautiful sight outside our window...the Cloister of the Dominican Fathers which we toured first. What an incredible sight inside this ancient chapel. Anxious to see the rest of the city, we explored the old town and also toured the Wawel Royal Castle which overlooks the city from a hill and is the ancient home of the kings and royalty that has ruled this country over the last six hundred years. Every hour in the town square a trumpeter in the top of a tower toots out a tune, but stops midway through the last note. The story is that...in ancient times at that same spot...as the trumpeter was blowing retreat during one of their wars, a Tartar archer shot an arrow right thru his throat!

Inside the Church of the Dominican Fathers

Town Hall Towers

Krakow is a VERY cool and beautiful placed...easy to walk, very European, old and tons of history. We ended the day at the Hard Rock Cafe (pin and beer) and had an outstanding polish dinner to end the evening. Our initial reaction to Krakow: One of the prettiest world-class cities of Europe that we've ever seen! Here's a preview:

First stop: The Galleria for a sim card for Andrea's phone. Playing around with the selfie exhibit!