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Published: August 25th 2008
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Religious looking chap
A holy-looking chap walks down the street Where exactly is "the new Prague"? Any up and coming tourist-savvy city east of Berlin, seemingly. There are a few pretenders to this lazy title, Tallinn, Budapest, Vilnius, and Krakow is one of them. Having never been to Prague, I am in no position to make a comparison, but this historic city in the south of Poland has received plenty of plaudits.
Just getting there was a new experience. We took an overnight sleeper train from Berlin, and the initial excitement of my first experience of such a method of transport quickly gave way to frustration as the conductor decided he knew better than the tickets we had paid 75 euros for and placed us in a completely different compartment to the one we had reserved. He then compounded this by taking the tickets away. Any attempt to converse wasn't really happening as our Polish was limited to "hello", "thankyou", "please" and "you have beautiful eyes", none of whichwere going to prise an explanation from an impatient 60-something who spoke no English. We were in a sleeper with three bunks and after we had accepted the situation we managed to get a surprising amount of sleep despite the unusual sensation
Wawel Castle
Wawel Castle in Krakow of trying to sleep on a moving train.
Leaving Krakow Glowny station, we managed to get ripped off my a rudimentary bureau de change operating out of a portakabin, before I walked out to see a man in a west ham sweatshirt walking past. Not a good start to Eastern Europe.
Tourists are not an unusual sight in Krakow. Some are seduced by Wawel castle and cathedral, which give superb views over the south of the city, others by the vibrant drinking scene. The old town has reportedly the highest concentration of places to wet your whistle in Europe. It's status as Poland's number one destination for tourists is partly down to luck. Unlike a lot of cities here, it escaped major damage during World War II. All the historic architecture remains intact, and the city's economy is reaping the benefit.
Luckily the locals are used to dealing with foreigners, and just as well as lunch saw us (well, me) try and impress a cute Polish waitress with our language skills. After she had stopped giggling like a schoolgirl at our clumsy attempts to ask for the menu, she was taken enough with us to invite us
View from Wawel Hill
The view to the south of the city from Wawel Hill to a 90s disco later that night.
Our evening in the old town saw a peaceful protest with people marching to the market square with flame torches opposing Russia's attacks on Georgia. Poland has been involved in the dispute and feelings here are running high.
We tore ourselves away from international politics and enjoyed a Polish meal of gnocchi (a type of stodgy dumpling) with chicken, and even with my ability to defeat even the heartiest of meals I had to give in with about a third left on the plate. It cost about 4 pounds.
After a few drinks in some different bars and sampling the half-empty 90s disco which saw three people up on the stage dancing to Roxette like it was the best thing they had ever heard, we headed back to the hostel, a ten minute walk away. We were sharing a four-bed room with two fellow Brits, one of whom looked a bit like Billy Bragg and regaled us with stories of travelling for four years on a credit card and running up a debt of 48,000 pounds before declaring himself bankrupt. Quite a character.
The mood turned as we prepared
Wawel Castle
Another shot of the castle for day 9 of the tour. We were headed 65km south west to a small town called Oswiecim. It's better known by its German name: Auschwicz.
In 1940, the Nazis took over a former Polish army barracks around 2km from the town of Oswiecim. It was far away from the actual town to be sufficiently covert, but positioned on a major railway junction, perfect for communications. Between then and the end of the war, around 1.5million people were brutally murdered here in a multitude of ways, lethal injection, hanging, starvation, shooting and gassing were the most popular methods of genocide employed by the sadistic SS. The sites at the original camp and Birkenau, a 175 hectare site nearby built purely for death, have been maintained as UNESCO world heritage sites.
We obviously had braced ourselves for the grimness of Auschwicz. The merits of a hasty lunch of a suspiciously undercooked hamburger served up by the podgy, ungloved fingers of the surliest waitress in Poland next to the station were looking shaky as it was. But it has to be one of the most powerful examples of pure evil still on display in the world. The most poignant exhibits
MKS Cracovia
The floodlights of MKS Cracovia's home ground are clearly visible from Wawel Hill were the personal possessions that belonged to prisoners arriving at the camp and the photographs of those who met a humiliating, painful death. There is so much I could write about our four hours at Auschwicz and Birkenau but I won't. I suggest instead that anyone feeling sorry for themselves for whatever reason should come here and see what over a million people, mainly Jews, from all over Europe had to endure at the hands of the Nazis. It really is horrific.
Our train back took two hours, chugging through the flat Polish countryside. It gave us a glimpse of rural life in Eastern Europe. An elderly gentleman fishing, a farmer ploughing a field propelled by two horses, as well as a large amount of unfinished buildings and graffiti. The latter is ubiquitous in Poland. I'm afraid to stand still lest someone come along and scrawl the name of the local football team on my thorax in blue spraypaint. Football is huge here and that night we were to see just how huge as we visited the home of Polish champions Wisla Krakow.
My mother won't like this bit. Violence is still a problem in Polish football and
Wawel Cathedral
A view of Wawel Cathedral Wisla are no strangers to it. The club had the dubious honour of cockney halfwit Danny Dyer coming down to make a programme on their intense rivalry with MKS Cracovia, just half a mile across a park. I figured that this was overblown and that we would be fine as long as we avoided the Ultras, the fanatical supporters that traditionally reside behind a goal and boast the most 'lively' characters.
The slow train had made us late and with no seating plan visible on arrival, I went to the nearest ticket kiosk to purchase two seats for about 6 pounds each. We made our way in and found ourselves herded behind the goal. Suddenly an earsplitting cry of "WISLA!" "KRAKOW!" shocked me into looking up to my right. Looking right back were about 6,000 Poles decked in red and white, every single one with their arms raised to the sky. They repeated their war cry. We were in with the Ultras.
I don't scare easily when it comes to football. I've been to some of the most notorious grounds in England, Millwall, Leeds, Cardiff, Stoke, as an opposition fan and never been in fear of my life.
Market Square
The market square in Krakow's historic old town But this was possibly the most intimidating experience I've had inside a football ground. Luckily it transpired that we were at the far end of the section so not right in the thick of it, but we could enjoy the show unfolding in the stand beside us.
The fans did not stop for 90 minutes, orchestrated by a supporter in a floppy hat stood on a stage with a microphone at the front of the stand facing the crowd. As for the game, Wisla were victorious 2-1 in an uninspiring mismatch that flattered losing side GKS Belchatow. But my first Eastern European footballing experience had been an unforgettable one.
Next day, after Si had visited the Krakow equivalent of Lakeside to buy new shoes after leaving his trainers on the night train, it was back to the station for the 7hr cross-country trip to Gdansk, where the first big cracks appeared in the Soviet Union's dominance of the region 20 years ago.
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