Cold nights.

---

There we were sitting on the train to Krakow all by ourselves watching the snow-covered landscape crawl by when this young, rather inebriated guy sits down next to us and begins to talk to us in rapid Polish. I finally get a chance to tell him that I don't understand a word he's saying. Now normally you would expect the conversation to be over at this point but this didn't phase him at all. For the next hour or so we talked in sign language, broken English, and the few new Polish words this guy taught us. What a great introduction to Poland.
I was on my own for the first day because Britt was under the weather and resting up; I started my tour of Krakow out in the Rynek Glòwny, or city square, which is one of the biggest in Europe. There I was able to check out the 14th century town hall clock tower (all that remains of the building), the Mariacki Church; and the Sukiennice, or cloth hall. The Sukiennice was once the local center for international trade which saw its golden age in the 15th century.
From the square I walked past St. Adalbert's church, the first church founded in the city, and down to St. Peter and Paul's church. From there I continued on to Wawel Castle which was the seat of the Polish monarchy for over 500 years. There I toured the cathedral which housed the tombs of all but 4 of the monarchs as well as some beautiful chapels. From the bell tower of the cathedral I got a great view over the city as the day drew to a close.
The next day Britt and I joined a tour of the near by Nazi work/ death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. We started the tour at the much smaller and older camp at Auschwitz. Here we walked through the cinder block buildings that housed the prisoners, prison staff and facilities, and one gas chamber. We saw where prisoners (90% Jewish) where lined up each day for roll call which would last until all prisoners, dead or alive, where accounted for. We also saw where mock trials were held just before prisoners were taken to a courtyard and shot.
Though Auschwitz was horrifying it was Birkenau that really drove the horror of the whole thing home. Not only was it the size of the place (around 500 acres), but the absolutely horrible conditions that people lived in that really drove it home how tortured these people where. At the very start 70% (mostly women and children) where taken right off the trains and gassed in the "showers". The 30 percent that were left lived in wooden horse stables. Visiting the site on a day when it was in the low 20's F made you realize what little chance someone had of surviving the whole ordeal and this was before being worked to death and tortured. Truly an awful place but one that needs to be seen to remember the over 1.5 million plus people that died there.
From Krakow we headed out of Poland and over to our first city in Germany, Berlin.

---

Comments

[Nordy]

Wow
Got shivers just reading that and lookin at the photos.

[Shane]

Whoa...
Nicely written. The pix pretty much say it all...