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Published: August 7th 2007
Hello to all!!
I hope that you all enjoyed Steve's first blog. I had to edit a few of the words (my grandpa reads this. Hi Pa!) but all over I thought he did quite a fine job. I think from now on we will take it in turns.
Now lets see.... Steve left you with the thought that we might try and head somewhere over the Easter break. At that point in time we already knew where we would be heading but writing it on the blog may have ruined the surprise that we planned for Steve's parents. Peter and Rita had been on a trip of Europe for a few weeks and it just so happened that they were in Krakow, Poland on the Easter weekend. We had not ticked that country off our list yet so we figured 'why not?' and booked ourselves in.
We arrived the morning of Good Friday and made our way into the centre of Krakow. After some lunch on the outskirts of Krakow we headed into the town centre a short walk away. It is hard to describe what the town is like as it makes you feel as though
you are strolling through a quaint little town when in reality it is a decent size city that buzzes with activity. You enter through the old gates that would have previously marked the cities entrance that are still looking quite impressive despite how old they are. From there you wander down the cobblestone street that is lined with shops and bars in the old buildings and in no time a great space opens before you filled with people and stalls selling all kinds of little goodies. The main square in Krakow is the largest medieval town square in Europe with a building that used to be the old cloth hall, standing in the centre. St Mary's church sits in one corner with a couple of other bulidings also scattered throughout. We passed through the square and headed down to have a quick look at the castle.
The castle is quite impressive and like most castles has an imposing presence upon the city. Although we did not go into the castle building we did have a nice walk around the grounds despite the freezing wind. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at St Mary's church to have
The Castle
Looking over the citya look inside. Those of you that have travelled Europe may have heard of the ABC 'Another Bloody Church', because you do see an awful lot of them, and although they are all quite stunning, many of them do look the same. Due to the ABC syndrome I was hesitant to pay money to enter the church but it was quite cheap so we thought we might as well. It is a medium sized church so it is not the size that impresses but the decoration. Stunning woodwork and coloured walls and ceilings painted with fine detail. Usually you walk around a church and admire the building and then leave, not this time. Steve and I sat and not only admired the aesthetics of this church but felt its presence (well I cant speak for Steve, but I could feel it). You could not only see, but feel the love, hardwork and pride that went into making this building so spectacular. After leaving the church we headed back to the hotel to go on a tour.
Our tour bus forgot to pick us up from our hotel, so one frantic taxi ride later (I was honestly fearing for
St Mary's Church
Looking towards the alter at the church my
life) we joined the tour bus at one of the pick up points and made our way to the Wieliczka Salt Mines. These are no longer working mines but you can do a tour that leads you through some of the old passage ways and into some of the caverns that had been created. Overall this tour takes around 3 hours and takes you along 2km of tunnels which is nothing considering that over the 900 years that it was a working mine over 200km of tunnels have been created. The miners created chapels throughout the mine and carved statues out of the salt. I would have to say that the best room you see is a huge chapel with chandeliers made of the clearest, purest salt crystals. You have to keep reminding yourself that this was created by the miners themselves, including many of the artworks carved into the salt walls. We finally finished the tour 135m below and caught a scary cage lift back up to the surface. Was certainly impressive and worth a look.
Back at the hotel we wandered into the dining room where a tour group was eating dinner. We walked up
Chapel
This chapel is around 100m underground and the walls, floor and ceiling are all salt. Pretty amazing behind 2
familiar people and Steve tapped Rita on the shoulder. It took her a moment or two to realise who it was, but I think she was excited to see us! We had told Peter that morning that we were going to meet them so he had managed the tough job of keeping it a suprise. We chatted till late that night and then headed to bed because we both had tours the next day.
While Peter and Rita went on a tour of Krakow and then the salt mines, we went on a tour to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. We had already visited a concentration camp just outside of Berlin as you may have remembered from a previous Blog. This experience was just as moving and unbelievable as before. Auschwitz worked on a totally different scale though because rather than being a 'Working Camp', although many were still being used as slave labour it was a 'Death Camp' with the main purpose being the mass extermination of Jews and others that were deemed not to be of a 'pure' race. It is made up of 2 main camps Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first was the original camp
The alter
This is the alter in the Chapel. All carved out of salt. You can see the pictures carved into the wall that was set
up in old Polish army barracks. There was not enough room for all the people and they could only murder 800 people at a time in the gas chamber there and so Birkenau was built and was 20 times bigger. The original camp still was used for administration, to house the prisoners who were labourers and some women and children that were being used for medical experiments. The gas chamber was turned into an air raid shelter and then used for medical storage. This is still standing and you are taken through there on the tour. It is a strange and haunting feeling as you walk through the door knowing that for as many as 60,000 people, this was the last building they ever entered. The rest of the barracks are now a museum about the camp, rooms filled with the possessions of the victims including shoes, glasses and most disturbing of all, their hair which was saved to be made into blankets. We took the bus ride over to Birkenau where you see the train tracks leading right into the camp where the people were transported like cattle. Once they arrived they had all their possesions
The gas chamber
The original gas chamber at Auschwitz taken and then were sorted into 2 groups. Those who could work and those that couldn't. Those that couldnt were led straight to the chambers where 2000 could be killed in 10 minutes. Up to 20,000 could be killed and cremated in a day. The sheer size of this camp in unbelievable and I dont think there would be any way that anyone who was not there could fully comprehend what those people went through.
After this humbling experience, we were taken back to our hotel where we met with Steve's parents and headed into town for dinner. We walked around town for a while had a couple of drinks and then we all tried some resonably traditional dishes for dinner which I think we all enjoyed. We had a good catch up into the evening, Steve and I stayed on in town looking to sample the highly regarded Krakow nightlife with Andrew from the tour that Peter and Rita were on. We didnt get back too late and managed to get up in time to see them off as they boarded the bus to Budapest where another suprise was waiting for them. Jade managed to get into their
Birkenau
The train tracks leading into Birkenau past the watch tower hotel room before
they arrived and apparently scared the life out of them when she emerged from the bathroom.
We spent our last day doing lots of walking. Being Easter Sunday almost nothing was open. We walked into the old Jewish district of town where we have been told parts of Schindlers List was based. Sadly there are not many Jews left in Krakow after WWII. I dont think many survived and those that did I believe moved elsewhere in Europe. It was hard walking down the quiet streets to imagine what would have taken place there not that long ago. We walked all along the river, past the castle and then back into town. We ate some lunch, drank hot chocolate and eventually made our way back to the hotel where we had a relaxing evening before hopping on our plane the following morning to head back to the UK.
Although we only saw a very small part of the country we really enjoyed our time there. It is still rebuilding itself after decades of memories that I am sure it would rather forget, or at least wish did not happen. The people overall were friendly and
The Station
Where passengers would have gotten off the train to be sorted out. You can also see a couple of the remaining barracks to the left the food and
drink was cheap. I dont think you can ask much more out of a holiday.
Since being back in the UK we have had a number of friends arrive both to live and some that are just visiting so we have been quite busy. Steve's parents have been to visit and we headed to Lakes District, Scotland and Ireland. But I will leave that for the next blog which I will hopefully complete sometime next week.
Missing you all - only 3 and a half months till we are back with you!
Until the next blog...
Love Liz and Steve
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