Underrated Country

The next leg of our travels was a flight, a very cheap flight. We basically needed to get out of the wildly expensive costs of London and as close to Czech Republic as possibly. That cheap flight was Warsaw, Poland. We hadn’t initially planned on visiting Poland on this journey, so little prior research was done. Luckily for us we had a friend that we had met back in 2013 that was from Warsaw and she wanted to meet up and show us around the city.

We met up for dinner on our first night, she showed us traditional Polish cuisine and we were immediately blown away! We completely fell in love with this cold, beet soup they make only in the summer. It takes over two days to fully prepare while letting the flavours meld together, and is finished with sour cream or yogurt. It is quite similar to a creamy borscht but more complex flavours and served cold with a boiled egg in the middle.

Following dinner, she then took us to a few vodka bars, where you walk in, order a shot or two and some simple snacks and head to the next one. It seemed like a very popular thing to do among the locals and we were right on bored with it. Having a few more days to explore the city, we realized it was a beautiful place to see. The amazing food was definitely an unexpected bonus!

The next morning, as we were heading into downtown, Kylee was looking out of the tram window and noticed a bear in the fountain as we drove by. As this fountain was right beside a main road, close to the city centre, and there were people standing right beside it, something didn’t seem normal. We took the tram back, and low and behold, there was a bear in the fountain. It ended up being part of the zoo, and there was a safety trench around the fountain so the bears wouldn’t jump out. We took our silly tourist photos waved goodbye and were on our way.

Some great places to find cheap and delicious eats in Poland are heading to Milk Bars. They were called this back in the war days when people couldn’t afford meat (due to lack of farmers and farmland) so they would go to cafeteria style places that served mostly milk and cheese products instead of meat. Nowadays, you can get a great meal, with meat, for a great price! The meal usually consists of a soup, a main, a starch, a salad and a juice for under $6.

We also ate our fair share of perogi when we were there, a staple of Polish cuisine. They have so many different varieties of these amazing potato dumplings, and they are also a great way to fill up for cheap. Aside from the beautiful architecture of this fantastic city, if there’s one thing we learned for sure, it’s that Poland is an incredibly underrated food destination!