One Day, Three Countries

I leave Bratislava on EuroCity 174 on it's long trek from Budapest to Hamburg as directed by the information desk's timetable. Its crowded and I stand in the corridor for an hour before changing at Breclav. The Slovakians inspect my passport at the border - even though I am leaving - but the Czechs don't bother. My schedule should now put me on the connecting EC to Krakow. I find that it doesn't run on a Wednesday; the next departure is on Saturday. My Slovakian ticket is handwritten and includes a seat reservation charge for the non-existent train. Surely the woman at the ticket office knew there was no train today. This means the schedule is useless too: I will have to work out my own route. I consult my map and the departure board in the booking hall and settle on a train to Katowice, the nearest point to Krakow I can get to. It is leaving in three minutes, and if I miss it, I will be stuck in the Czech Republic until the next train late in the evening. I run through the underpass and climb onto the train seconds before the conductor blows his whistle. The train is almost empty and I have my own compartment in one of the Polish InterCity carriages. There is a brief stop at the Polish border for passport control and a swap of locomotive for a faded green EU07 electric with three oversized headlights that make it look like a toy, then the train sets off again, but at a much slower pace. I assume there is a signal check or a freight train ahead that we will overtake shortly in a passing loop, but I am wrong. I look out of the window at the tangle of tracks that seem to head off in every direction, sometimes disappearing into the undergrowth at the side of the line, unused for years, other times fanning out into a marshalling yard a mile long in the middle of the forest we travel through. Wooden sleepers, jointed rails, countless worn-out crossovers and points, weeds and grass growing between the rails. The train manages 50kmh at best - often less - shuddering and jarring over the junctions, squealing round bends, thumping over the worn out railway. We pass huge mines with skeletal gantries and conveyors dropping coal into lines of waiting wagons; every mile or so there is a passing loop with a long coal train awaiting our passage, and more marshalling yards with hundreds of loaded freight cars. The constant hammering of the coal trains, the old rails and sleepers, the overall neglect would derail the train should the driver try coax another 10kmh from the aging EU07. At one station the hulks of half a dozen steam engines fill a siding, bushes growing around them, a sapling poking from one rusted-through tender. Not scrapped, not preserved, just dumped - state sanctioned fly-tipping. At another station, the train waits for 15 minutes for some unknown reason: nobody gets on or off, nothing passes in either direction. I wait for an hour at Katowice - I might try to find a room but the city is unattractive and there is no information in or around the station. I would like a cold beer but there is no bar at the station and nowhere to buy my own. There is no booth, no alcohol, and most noticeably, no alcoholics around the station. There is no litter, the foodstalls are selling things you could actually eat, and no homeless people are sleeping on the benches outside the booking hall. I am shocked. The Polish have obviously realised that alcohol isn't the best traveling companion, and railway stations are not the best place for a night's sleep.
The train to Krakow is even slower. The carriages are a dull grey and pulled by a peeling ET21 electric, the compartments hot and stuffy and crowded. I have finished all of my water before the train is even halfway there. Before each station there is a ding-dong from the tannoy followed by a deafening announcement; every time this happens the old lady sitting opposite tries to answer her mobile phone, then gives an oh-silly-me laugh when she realises her mistake; when it does eventually ring - sounding nothing like ding-dong - she ignores it. We crawl into Krakow and I stagger onto the platform and head straight for the nearest foodstall. I drink almost a litre of water straight down and feel immediately better.
I book a room with the IT information office at the station and walk into town. At every turn there is something to see; churches, medieval architecture, courtyards and alleyways. I pass the American consulate under the watchful gaze of two guards armed with sub-machineguns, then cross the main square and find my hotel at the edge of the park that encircles the old town. As fascinating as the town is, it is also unpleasantly crowded and very commercialised. I no longer feel I'm in Central Europe; this could just as easily be Luxembourg or Koln. It is as wealthy, as expensive, and has the same designer boutiques and upmarket hotels as any city in the West. I go out to eat and find dozens of identical street cafes around the edge of the square. They all have broadly the same uninspiring menu of pizza, grills, chips, and ice cream. There are hordes of noisy people and the constant strobe of camera flashes, street entertainers working the square in front of the tables, and someone handing out flyers every few paces. I drink a beer at the least expensive place I can find but dismiss the menu. I go to a delicatessen opposite my hotel and eat perfectly well in my room in peace and quiet, a bottle of Okocim tonight instead of Kozel.