Krakow, Poland: Polska, the land of Perogies!

Krakow is a city with over 86 churches and 600 restaurants, bars, cafes and night clubs. Needless to say it's a city where sin plays a prominent role.



We stayed at a hostel just outside of the old town centre of Krakow and spent most nights wandering through the old cobblestone alleys. We visited one of the many restaurants where we drank beer with raspberry juice, danced in a tiny and sweaty dungeon of a Hip-Hop club and simply wandered around to explore what we could. We also found our way through the suburbs to a Tesco (like Wal-Mart) and a Milk Bar (a working person's dinner where the workers are grumpy but the food is amazing!!!!)


Our first full day was spent as Wawel Castle, the castle and estate of the former royal family, now a symbol of Krakow and Poland. It's large and elaborate...and crowded with throngs of tourists from everywhere. The tour through the royal apartments displayed perhaps the largest collection of tapestry I've ever seen and the most interesting wall cover...leather.


We also visited a mideval salt mine, over 600 meters under the ground. The mine itself would have been less disappointing had it been advertised as salt sculptures within the structure of a former mine (since that's basically all it was). It was impressive in that it had an entire cathedral within it. The visit was not a total disappointment, since there were three clear highlights.


1. eating perogies at a restaurant 600 meters under the ground


2. being literally crammed into a very flimsy elevator measuring 4 ft x 3 ft with 8 other strangers (9 people in total). Cosy.


3. our tour guide -the true highlight and disappointment. Think Ben Stein with a very thick Polish accent and much slower. This guy had me in giggle fits all of the time. He was so slow, so monotone and so ridiculously Polish that no one on the English tour could actually understand anything he was saying. Hysterical and frustrating all at once.




No one should come to Krakow without exploring the important parts of it's history...most importantly the areas and places impacted by the Holocaust. We spent quite some time in Kazmierz (the former Jewish area) now the centre for Krakow's art community (think the Annex in Toronto, complete with young smokers in dark and dirty, candle-lit cafes). We were also able to see the outside of Oscar Schindler's former factory, where over 1200 Jews worked, and were subsequently saved, during WWII (you must watch Schindler's List!).


The most interesting and depressing experience of the visit came with our tour of Auschwitz and Auschwitz II- Birkenau. When you first enter Auschwitz it's easy to not be affected by its history, since the well kept exterior of the buildings and their inconspicuousness makes the camp look like little more than a housing complex for military personnel. It isn't until you get inside the buildings and see the collections and exhibits that the horror truly sets in.


Thousands of kilograms of human hair used for making fabrics, thousands of abandoned shoes, tooth and hair brushes, children's clothes, broken dolls and prosthetics. Thousands of suitcases with the names of those who simply thought they were relocating. All of these horrendous sights set the stage for the remainder of the tour, which takes you past a wall where prisoners and Jews were shot for punishment, or simply by the whim of a Nazi soldier. Two wooden poles where people were hung with their hands tied behind their backs, making them "unfit" for work, leading to their murder. Like so many before us, we viewed the cells where camp prisoners and Jews were forced to stand all night, crowded in a brick cell 3 ft x 3 ft with 3 others, after working over 10 hours, only to have to work another 10 the next day. We even stood in the gas chamber and walked from that dark and devastating room to the crematorium attached. Nothing can express the feeling of walking through a door that you know has seen more dead than alive.


After the tour of Auschwitz we visited Birkenau, the second part of Auschwitz, over 26 times the size of Auschwitz, but certainly the section that people think of when the think of the death camp. It was here, in the 4 gas chambers and crematoriums that the Nazis executed over 1 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and prisoners of war. Most of the camp has been destroyed, primarily by the Nazis as a way of hiding the true use of the camp. It is here that you can stand on the train platform where so many fates were decided, where you can see the conditions underwhich so many were forced to live...and it is here that you become amazed at the strength of the human body and try to comprehend how anyone was able to live through the horror brought upon them.


Auschwitz was something I will never forget. The images and the information add another dimension to my understanding of the Holocaust that I would never have been able to have, regardless of how many books read or films watched.


Krakow has been an experience. A wonderful way to begin our travels.

Now we`re off to Prague!
****Pictures will follow as soon as we find a computer that will let us post them.****


-S.