Auschwitz and Salt Mines

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5 February - Thursday

Today I was up early again and had breakfast with wacky Tom from the hostel - who works there. Think he is on something because he is way too chirpy for that time of morning!! No one else in the hostel is ever up at that time though. By the time I had finished my breakfast I had seen about two or three other people from the hostel total and then I headed across the road to a hotel to wait for my bus to pick me up for my Auschwitz and Birkenau tour. As per yesterday, we continued to pick up some people before getting to the central starting point where some people got off the bus to go on other tours.

About 20 of us headed to Aucshwitz from there. On the way we watched a film that basically went into the history of the camp, both pre-WWII and durting WWII. We arrived at Auschwitz about an hour and a half later to see masses of crowds. We collected our head sets and followed our very hard-to-understand Polish guide around the complex. The complex itself was massive but because it was absolutely swarming with tourists it didn't quite have the 'vibe' I expexted. Having to line up behind hoardes of school children to get into the 'death block' just kind of makes it a little touristy. Couldn't imagine what it would be like during peak season though!! Even worse I would imagine.

We toured a few of the blocks and spent about two hours touring the complex. Saw 2000kg of hair cut from people who were put to death in the gas chambers, plus the piles of shoes, glasses, suitcases, etc, that had been confiscated from Jews when they arrived. By the time the tour was over we only had about 10 minutes before we were herded back onto the bus. I would have liked to have had a bit of time to wander round and have a look on my own, but that's what you get for doing an organised trip isn't it.

After that it was onto Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, where we climbed the watch tower to have a look over that complex, which was basically the first place where people arrived on a train.

After barely half an hour there we were back onto the bus and an hour later we were back in Krakow.

From there, I jumped onto another bus to head out to Wieliczka Salt Mine. There was only about 8 of us on that tour and it was only about 20 minute drive away. On arrival we got our tickets and found our tour guide who was going to show us through the salt mine. So what exactly is the salt mine? Exactly what it sounds like. Everything down there is basically salt, all the walls, floors, etc, except of course those sections which are supported by wooden plants. It isn't white salt though like you might think - the salt that you mostly see is of the black variety. There were several chapels underneath, as well as some sophisticated pulley systems. The lowest point that we went down to was 135 metres below. Walked down 54 flights of stairs to get down there, but thankfully didn't have to walk back up them, instead we got a freaky high speed lift that squishes 36 people in on 4 levels of a single lift, and goes fast and not very steadily!!

Got back into Krakow at around 6:30pm in time for dinner and a few drinks before bed.

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