I got a pleasant run in after a not wonderful night’s sleep – the fridge was rather noisy – well, I think it was more I could feel the vibration, as I used my ear plugs, of course. I am a bit sensitive. The run was nice, although I was disappointed the enormous park & gardens we’d planned to spend the afternoon in were under a lot of construction, so that became a less appealing option.
Thomas, the bike tour guide in Vilnius, had recommended the Copernicus Science Centre as a good place to go with kids. He was not wrong. I booked us in for the exhibition in the morning and thought I’d better add a planetarium session too. There was a show called “Polaris” at 12.30pm – I just hoped we wouldn’t get too bored from 10am until then!
Well, I needn’t have worried about that. The centre is AMAZING. I confess, it’s a bit odd not having anything really about Copernicus himself, and hardly anything about the solar system and astronomy! But what it does have is TONS of interactive exhibits about AI, robotics, perception (some things we’d already experienced at the Paradox Museum in Stockholm so it was nice to revisit them here), magnetism, forces, electricity, climate, 5G – masses of stuff. We could have spent the whole day here, to be honest… although the girls (probably us too) were getting a bit hyper as there was so much stimulation! I can’t recommend the main museum highly enough. Nice café too for mid-morning muffin and macaron.
The same cannot be said of the planetarium – it’s a lovely facility, but the show was in 2 parts:
- Part One was a live show, a guy talking about constellations which is exactly what I wanted…but it’s only in Polish. It’s not like there are other sessions in English, the live sessions seem only ever to be in Polish.
- Part Two was Polaris. The main audio is Polish, but you have a headset if you want to override it by deafening yourself with Russian, Ukrainian or English. The film was a cartoon about a polar bear and a penguin converting a submarine into a rocket to explore Mars and Saturn. Absolute bullshit.
We had to clear out without delay at that point as we had another event booked. I almost messed up as the Fryderyk Concert Hall (where we were going) is in the old town, NOWHERE NEAR the Chopin Museum. But I double checked and we went the right way and walked there, past the amazing-looking Universal Library. We needed a refuel and had limited time, and there was a McDonald’s just in the right place, so we had lunch there – the first time the girls had ever been to one! And the first time I’d ordered through the touch screens…but it worked fine and was acceptable all round. And cheap, of course!
We arrived at the concert hall with at least 5 minutes to spare, and it was surp not at all busy. Only a dozen or so in the audience, in a room that would fit 60 or so. The recital was great – so impressive to watch someone playing so powerfully and without any music, all from memory. There was a short interval and I thought “wouldn’t it be nice if there was a glass of something…?” And you know what? There was! We were invited to troupe out to another room and chat a bit and have a glass of orange juice or sparkling wine. Not wonderful wine, I admit, but made the experience more civilised, for sure. The music concluded and it was sufficiently short for the girls to keep it together – about an hour all told. It also helped that a ladybird appeared to be a visual distraction too.
As the girls had done very well, we sat for an ice cream (I had a beer – hey I’d done well too! 🙂) then found a playground. We ambled back to the apartment and decided to order food in for the evening. I downloaded the “Wolt” app (Polish Deliveroo, I guess) and amazingly our two riders bringing a pizza for the girls and an assortment of pierogi and ox cheek pancakes for us arriving at exactly the same time! I’d also identified which fuse ran the fridge, so clicked that off for the night so we slept rather better. I did remember to turn it back on again in the morning! Somehow opening the fridge door launched the small jar of apricot jam onto the floor, but even after cleaning up the sticky shards, there was still time to nip downstairs for coffees before returning to the station.
The 0833 to Krakow was on time and definitely not the service coming from Vilnius! Very modern, with a first class compartment including table service with a menu of options – croissants and 1 round of drinks (coffee and apple juice) included. Very pleasant indeed.
Timsformational 