Krakow

Birkenau tracks leading to the selection ramp.
see all photos »

We arrived in Warsaw, the capital...which is huge but the airport is a close ride to the Central Station.

Caught the train down to Krakow, a three hour train ride through the beautiful, dense countryside! Seems they dont have tractors as readily as we do, as a lot of the farmers in the fields were using the old horse and cart...seriously!

We stayed in a nice hotel, which was a 5 minute walk from the 'Old City'. Krakow was beautiful. The 'old city' was really alive, with heaps of outdoor cafes and restaurants, and hundreds of kebab stores down the side streets, who would have thought you would go to Poland to be tempted by kebabs every second hole in the wall!

Old Town Market Square, Krakow and the Church of St Mary
see all photos »

The food was incredibly cheap, and the beer even more so. However, the service was very average, it took a long time and your table never got cleared in a hurry, although that is a good thing, not having your drink snatched from your hand aka rundle st!

I spent a day visiting 'The Wawel', a limestone hill which is South of the Old Town and has several buildings including a great Renaissance castle and Gothic Cathedral! It was a huge place, and the cathedral was stunning!

One of the most poignant and memorable moments was visiting Auschwitz concentration camp, an hour out of the Krakow. We took a guided tour, although it was hard to get a grasp on the atrocities because of the swarming tourists being summertime, however it was an experience and I was amazed at the size and mentality behind what went on.  Walking through the gas chamber, was almost too much, thinking about what those people went through was sickening. A lot of Polish died at this crematorium.

Old Town, Market Square, Krakow
see all photos »

We then went on the tour bus 3km away to Auschwitz 2 - Birkenau. It was huge, the germans had blown a lot of it up when the allies came to liberate the camp, but seeing some of the remaining  living quarters and conditions was astonishing. Our tour was terrible disorganised, so we were running late and didnt spend much time, but those infamous train tracks ariving at the platform pretty much summed it up!

Took a tour to the salt mines in Wieliczka the next day, these were great like a little city underground and we went down 135m and took a tour around the underground museum, which took around 3 hours and cost 60 zlotys. Instead of travelling there on a tour, we simply took a mini bus which left from in the city and was a lot cheaper, 2.50 zlotys one way! It's a lot better than being ripped off by disorganised tours who charge double the price for transport and entrance!

Old Town Market Square, Krakow Church of St Mary.
see all photos »

The salt mines were great, with all salt statues carved out, and a beautiful chapel carved out of rock salt and with some great salt sculptures!I would have liked to have seen more of the mines though, the tour concentrated a lot on statues that had been donated to the mines by famous artists.

I really enjoyed Krakow, I thought the history was fascinating, the churches beautiful and the people friendly!