Blogs from Lesser Poland, Poland, Europe - page 10

Photos have now been added to this blog. So if you have already read it you might want to look at them. If you haven't already read it then this message is completely irrelevant so the question must be asked: Why are you reading it? Wouldn't it make more sense just to skip this section (which you are still reading) and go straight to the blog? Rather than worry about all this waffle, you could be reading about our exciting times in Poland, which follows at the end of the paragraph. The end of this paragraph is actually quite near as it happens. It comes at the end of this message, which is right now. Wednesday 15 July: Two groups of 5 Irish young people checked in yesterday and soon found each other. Unfortunately even putting ... read more

All we hear about Auschwitz is the horrifying statistics. An estimated 1.1 million men, women and children, Jews, Poles and homosexuals, were slaughtered here. It is unique because as well as being the largest camp, it is the only Nazi facility that doubled as both a death/extermination camp and a concentration/labour camp. I will try to describe my experience at this haunting place but it is difficult to put it into words. I was not aware before visiting that there are two completely different parts of the Auschwitz Concentration camp. Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau. These are about a kilometer apart from each other and present completely different styles of concentrations camps. Auschwitz I in filled will tall brick town houses, along straight lanes. Without any knowledge of where you were, you could be mistaken to ... read more

Serious stress, a change of plans then recovery, somewhat. And that sums up our departure from the a city we knew very little of before visiting but which we quickly fell in love with - Krakow. Paris has grandeur, Barcelona beauty and Rome is unique but Krakow is a gem of a place, at least in our minds. But back to the stress. Based on past experience with some train systems, especially in Italy, we made absolutely sure that on this occasion we left nothing to chance. All of our train tickets had already been purchased through our travel agent once we had settled our plans, with the exception of the Krakow to Warsaw route. Jeanette did this deliberately to allow for some flexibility as she was considering a possible visit to Czestochowa, a small city ... read more

On this our final full day in Krakow the tour bus picked us up as planned and we headed out to the famed Wieliczka Salt Mine of southern Poland. As if living in a Jules Verne novel, our group started it's descent on a spiral staircase to our first stop on our way to a depth of 135 meters beneath the earth's surface. Incredibly this mine reaches a depth of 327 meters (1,073 feet) and is more than 287 kilometers long, producing salt since the 13th century until 2007. It's rock salt is a polished grey, almost like marble and not the crystal white substance that one would expect. The deeper we went the more magnificent it became, housing some 4 chapels built by the miners for prayer and protection, including a huge cathedral complete with ... read more

Our flight was at 6am from Edinburgh. That meant getting up at 2.30am. There was no way I was staying up all night, plus we wanted to be able to explore when we arrived as we would arrive at about 10am, so we had the full day. We arrived in Edinburgh, parked the car and off we went. The flight went without a hitch and actually arrived early. Our transfer was waiting for us and our very chatty driver told us a bit about what to see and do and that he had just learned in his English class the day before what a Glasgow Kiss was. We checked in and were happy to hear that our apartment was available to us and we did not have to wait until 2pm. The apartment was really good. ... read more