Krakow

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We arrived in Krakow to be greeted with pouring rain which made siteseeing quite minimal, and we chose to stick around the main square, Rynek Growny and wandered up Europe's oldest closed market in the middle of the massive old square, which is very impressive.

The next day was much nicer and we headed on a tour of the massive Auschwitz concentration camp, where over 1 million people died over the course of its 4 year operation. We firstly saw Auschwitz 1 which was just for men and the conditions were not as bad as Auschwitz 2-Berkenau. As the buildings in Auschwitz 1 are brick and mostly in tact, it contains the museum which contains lots of gruesome photos and some fairly horrific displays including all of the hair that was collected from the females that were killed, and all of the shoes collected. The volumes defied all comprehension and visually showed what it means when they say 1.1 million people were killed.

The sleeping quarters and bathrooms were on show and conditions were hauntingly described by our excellent local guide.

The gate has a sign that proclaims work to be free. But most lasted just a few months and were never free.

We went into the gas chamber and crematorium which was a bit spooky and we finished at the train line where they entered the camp, which was used in the movie Schindler's List.

After the horror of Aucshwitz, we went to the more uplifting marvellous Wieliczka salt mine and descended 130 metres and went through just a small portion of the 300kms of tunnels.

Amazingly, the mine was built in the 17th century and contains many huge chambers, a couple which are chapels. These were all dug out by hand prior to 1900 and many contain salt statues and carvings. Then there is the huge grand ballroom including a salt statue of pope John Paul as well as countless carvings and little statues in the huge underground cave lit up by salt chandeliers. It defies belief until you are in there. Thankfully we don't need to take the stairs up and instead ride the very small elevator. The salt mine is not for those who don't like confined spaces! It is easy to see why the salt mine was one of the original items listed as a world heritage site in 1978 as it is a truly miraculous engineering feat and now a very well done museum.

After all that, we went to the main square to enjoy a quiet dinner outside in the nice evening. Well, we thought it would be, and then thousands of chanting Krakow football fans descended on the square to celebrate their team winning the polish football league. The town square was packed and as the players entered the square on a double decker bus and showed off the trophy on the balcony of the market, the flares were going off and the chanting was deafening! It was a pretty cool scene to watch while calmly having dinner on the outer edge of the square.

The next day we wandered up Wawel Hill to the castle grounds. We visited the cathedral, the ruins of a 10th century tomb and the royal jewels and weapons from medieval Europe, which was quite an expansive collection. We also enjoyed the views from Wawel hill before checking out the Jewish quarter just to the south which was a series of small cobbled streets featuring a huge synagogue and plazas with street markets.

We then climbed up the Town Hall Tower, which sits in the middle of the main square. At the top we had great panoramic views of the city, although you couldn't go out to the balcony for safety reasons. However, they let you go down the steep narrow winding dark staircase, which seemed much more hazardous.

That was it for Krakow, but it is certainly one of my favourite European cities and its old town is not at all tacky but is just a very cool place to spend some time.

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