Recommendation is a wonderful thing. Months before our visit to Krakow Judy, my sister-in-law, receives a recommendation for Greg and Tom’s Hostel and this is where we stay.

The staff have gone to great lengths for us, allocating rooms in an apartment away from the main hostel. We join our fellow guests for breakfast and at other times enjoy our own family space.

In mainland Europe Christmas is often celebrated on Christmas Eve with a family meal followed by Midnight Mass. Poland is no exception. Along with other guests we are invited to join staff at the hostel on Christmas Eve for supper “on the house”.

The kitchen and lounge are full. We are about twenty-five guests in total. We range in age from the early twenties to the late seventies. Guests are from Europe, the Americas and Asia. The curiosity of the traveller is such that we make easy contact and share stories and information about our visit here to Krakow and our lives back home.

The staff have prepared a variety of traditional Polish dishes and we eat abundantly. After supper Peter prepares vodka shots and I can’t quite believe it when my mother is persuaded to down a shot in one.

Rebecca, my niece, yearns for some traditional carols and my mother, nephew and I agree to sing a few in the kitchen. The room quickly fills with guests as we sing and, in time, other guests coyly agree to share something in their own mother tongue. Christmas is portable, after all.

At 10 o’clock we leave in haste and make our way to see the nativity story played out in the open air. We may not understand Polish but we enjoy the story with which we are amply familiar.