We flew from Stockholm to Krakow last night to meet up with my children, their partners and grandchild. My son has been working in London for years, and my daughter has just commenced a six month term in Berlin with her work, and they had arranged this weekend get together before we had even planned to fly to Europe.

So this weekend was the first time we had all been together for more than a year. A pair of adjoining apartments was rented in the centre of Krakow, near to the main train station and only a few minutes walk from the medieval “Old Town”.

We arranged to walk around the town for the day, taking our time strolling around the market squares and public buildings before heading down to Wawel Cathedral and Wawel Castle, perched up on a steep hill overlooking the Vistula River, the longest river in Poland, as it drains from the high country of Slovakia down to the Baltic.

Lucky for us, the toddler midday sleep time coincided with our lunch stop at a Georgian restaurant, and then we continued walking through the afternoon, taking part in a guided tour through the Jewish quarter of Krakow. While Krakow did not suffer any physical damage throughout World War II, the heard how the citizens of the city suffered through the war.