Rolling Traveler

10:34 am. I always advise people to check things in advance and do their research, but I’m very bad at taking my own advice. Instead of looking up which tram lines have the low-floor vehicles and when those vehicles run, I just came out to the stop. The two trams that have passed have both been high-floor vehicles, with steps up into them. I did see a low-floor one, going in the opposite direction. It looks like the new ones have the same design as the Dutch and German ones: the floor is lower so it’s easier to get on, but not 100% accessible. At this stop, there’s about a 5-inch gap between the road and the floor of the tram.

It’s now too late for me to wait for another tram and hope it’s the right type for me to get on, and I don’t feel like being lifted onto a high-floor one, so I’m getting a taxi. I’ll investigate tram accessibility tomorrow.

10:39 am. That was quick! The taxi’s here already.

10:42 am. I wonder what the driver thinks of me writing while we drive.

There was no problem with getting the wheelchair into the trunk. I thought I’d have to take the wheels off, but it was deeper than it looked. Now we just need to find an ATM, because yesterday I forgot to get zloty (the Polish currency). Poland is in the EU, but not yet in the Euro zone.

10:56 am. The city is really congested, even now, well after rush hour. The driver says that Wroclaw still doesn’t have the ring road/bypass that it’s needed since the late eighties.

We found an ATM, but it was absolutely inaccessible, set high on the wall and with two steps, so we’re going to look for another one nearer our goal. It seems there’s the same problem here as in Germany, because the two ATMs I know nearer the Rynek (the Town Square) are also inaccessible.

11:04 am. All sorted. We found a suitable ATM, and I’m only a couple of minutes late. The cab fare was €7.50.

I’m very fond of Wroclaw’s Rynek, which houses the Town Hall. Most of the businesses are restaurants, bars and cafés, with a few stores, a post office, banks and a tourist information office. Over the past 12 years, the facades of the buildings have been restored to their former colors, making the Rynek a rainbow of medieval to modern architecture. Unfortunately, the traditional and modern cobblestones chosen for the surface of the square, while looking great, are a horrible surface to ride a wheelchair over. Getting around is a challenge.

Two views of Wroclaw’s Rynek. Shame about the cloudy weather! 

11:20 am. We’re eating at Vega, a vegetarian self-service cafeteria in Wroclaw’s Rynek. The food is Good to Very Good, depending on what you order - some things do sit on heating plates for some time before being bought, some are fresh - and the atmosphere is great. The ladies at the counter still remember me, even though I haven’t lived here for 5 years, and they still remember what I like to order: fried mushroom-stuffed pancakes. Christian orders a salad, and the bill comes to about €9 with drinks.

Vega’s disadvantage is the entrance: there’s a singe step in the doorway, and while it isn’t too high to manage in a wheelchair, there’s a little metal ridge halfway across it that is just far enough back to allow the casters to fit on the step, but not far enough back to allow the rear wheels traction on the step. I always need help to get in. On top of that, the restrooms are upstairs, so I can’t give it a good rating for accessibility.

12:30 pm. We’ve eaten well and had a great chat, now we’re going for a stroll out across the city.

Getting around Wroclaw in a wheelchair isn’t as difficult as it used to be, but it’s still hard. There are curb cuts and smooth, rennovated sidewalks in most of the city center, but there are also decorative cobblestones, old cracked and damaged paving slabs, and old rough and pitted tarmac, even within a block of the Rynek. Some design choices are odd too - a cobblestoned slope, for example. As you get farther out from the center, there are areas where no roadworks have been done for years, and these are very tough going. However, the improvements are visible, and there’s still more work being done.

12:42 pm. We pass a billboard advertising a supermarket’s low prices, showing three raw chicken breasts on a bed of salad. How is that an appetizing image? Raw poultry looks awful.

1:15 pm. We reach the limit of the city center, just before the railway viaducts that divide the old city from Krzyki, the south district. There’s a great piece of sculpture here: I don’t know why it was put up, or who designed it, but I love it. It’s a striking piece that uses its environment well.

2:00 pm. Christian has to head to work, and I’m going to go back to the flat for a while, maybe have a lie down. Getting around in a city like this, navigating uneven streets and so on, takes a lot out of me. It’s definitely better than it used to be, but you’d need to have someone with you to give you a hand now and again if you were coming here  with a wheelchair.

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