Krakow Days

The second instalment of our Eastern European foray took place in February with a 3 day trip to Krakow.

After a 15 minute intensive Polish lesson by our crazy taxi driver, we arrived just in time for a coffee from our host (Magdalina - at http://www.crackowdays.com/, a fantastic B'n'B) and then to be bundled off on a tour of the salt mines.

We had heard quite good things about the salt mines - miles and miles of tunnels carved deep under the ground, interspersed with the odd chapel, lake, carved statutes - all apparently carved by the highly religious miners over the years. The mine goes down some 330m, but on the tour you get to about 135m - that's still quite a few steps! The salt mines were ok - but we far preferred the more rustic type of mine tour experience we had in Bolivia! (http://rossandmichelleontour.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-road-dynamite-and-deserts.html)

Chapel carved underground in the salt mines

Day 2 was largely spent on a tour of the Death Camps located not far from Krakow - Auschwitz and Birkenau. This was an incredible experience and something we are unlikely to ever forget. I had not appreciated the scale or nature of the atrocities carried out here - the harvesting of human hair for use in textiles, the fact that most people arrived with the belief that they were being relocated to a new life, but were put straight in gas chambers and killed. Those selected to live were housed in appalling conditions and usually worked to death.

The famous gates to Auschwitz - 'Work sets you free'

Auschwitz buildings in the snow

It was also interesting to understand why the camps were built where they were - essentially because the location was fairly central in the then occupied German territories, had an established rail network (allowing for the easy mass movement of people) and was an industrial area so prisoners could be put to work in factories.

Auschwitz was an old army barracks and so the multi-storied brick buildings were originally built for the Polish army and were not what I had visualised a concentration camp would look like. The nearby Birkenau (built as a death and concentration camp when it became apparent that Auschwitz was too small) however did match the 'Great Escape' or Hogan's Heroes depiction of a camp - rows of stable like wooden huts.

Birkenau - the chimneys are all that remain of wooden huts

The most airy moment for me remains standing in a gas chamber at Auschwitz into which new arrivals at the camp were put under the pretense that they would be showered there (hence false shower heads on the walls). Instead they were gassed and burnt in furnaces located in an adjacent room. As I stood there, I looked up to see that I was standing directly under one of the small holes in the ceiling through which the gas producing chemicals were dropped and for a moment a sense of the horror that 1000s before me must have felt as they stood there naked to see something being dropped into the room above them.

Birkenau - brick huts for women in the background

The balance of our time was spent exploring the historic centre of Krakow, Wawel Hill (with the Castle), a few of its (literally) 100s of churches, shopping (lots of great wooden toys!) and eating dumplings (more on them below).


We had a couple of great eating experiences - so cheap! Top marks go to the dumplings (pierogi) - they are sooooo good! Filled with meats, vegetables, cheese - steamed and serviced with a light sauce kinda like soya sauce. As with Prague, we were impressed with the range and quality of restaurants on offer. The pick for us was probably a place called Nostalgia - food was quite local and very good - a big hunk of pork for me and half a duck for Mich!

A great weekend to mark the end of this little Eastern European spell.