5 reasons Krakow is better than Prague

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And those five reasons are:

1. Ice ceam is nicer and with bigger servings.

2. Beer is nicer and still cheap.

3. The city feels more real. You can see people living here whereas Prague looks like a big theme park for tourists that no one actually lives in.

4. The women are better looking in Poland.

5. Krakow has free fozball tables in their shopping centres. Stephen beat Michelle 2-0.

This is Stephen's list, I think he enjoyed Krakow a bit more than Prague. It may have had something to do with the fact that we had a great hostel and the location was fabulous. The good night sleep he got also helps to make a city look prettier.

The city was beautiful and there was so much to do. We only spent two days there, but it was wonderful. The first day we explored the city centre and the Jewish quarter. As the Jewish quarter was the furthest away we started there and worked our way back towards the hostel. After saving up all our Jewish holocaust history until now it was a great opportunity to see how this important event impacted Jewish lives at the time. The whole Jewish quarter has since been abandoned by any surviours of the holocaust (not that there were many) and the synagogues have been set up as museums of Polish Jewish history. The other interesting sites there were the cemeteries. There is the old cemetery which was destroyed by the Nazis during the occupation and the original wall surrounding it has been rebuilt using parts of the smashed tombstones to create a mosaic wall. The new cemetery is much larger and contains memorials to entire families that were killed during the holocaust.

From the Jewish quarter we walked to Wawel Castle. We weren't able to go into the buildings as we had much to do and so little time but the grounds were beautiful.

As we walked from Wawel Castle to the town square (the second largest in the world) we even saw Pope John Paul II's old house, on the oldest street in Krakow. Krakow really loves to let everyone know that Pope John Paul II was a bishop here before he became pope. They are really flogging that dead horse as Stephen says.

The town square was full of buskers, street stall and living statues which made it a perfect place to stop for lunch, although we can't recommend Polish kebabs. From here we entered St Mary's Basilica, one of the most beautiful churches we have seen. The photos really don't do it justice. And every hour a trumpeter plays the "Hejal" in memory of a trumpeter shot while sounding the alarm during the middle ages. From St Mary's it was a short walk to St Anne's which certainly challenges St Mary's on the beauty stakes and is rightly known as one the most beautiful churches in Poland (and another Pope John Paul II site). The murals and decoration in St Anne's are truely amazing. We wandered around the old city, following the route of the old city walls to the old Bardican, which was part of the city's old wall system. It was a principil gateway and element of defence for Krakow and the amazing thing it has survived all the hardship that Krakow had been through.

Our second day was Auschwitz. It was a long day but very worth it. I'd heard visiting concernstation camps are very chilling and a surreal experience. Auschwitz wasn't like that ay all. It was distrubing in the fact that the whole thing was so organised. Both Stephen and I couldn't get over how organised everything was, they wasted nothing and everything was accounted for. We visited both Auschwitz one and two. Auschwitz one had brick barracks still standing which were orginally built for the Poland police. It was chilling to see all the things that Nazis collected from all the hair (the soviets found 7 tons of bagged hair when the liberated), the piles of eye glasses, shoes and brushes and suitcases of those who never really had a chance in Auschwitz. We decided to take a tour which lasted 3.5 hours and it was excellent; the guide spoke with such passion and empathy. It was also hard to be effected becuase it was surround by a town that had grown after the war. We spent about two hours here, wandering through the barracks, seeing the conditions people lived in, first it was only Poles who went to Auschwitz, politcial prisoners, teachers and lectures. One of the worst or best rooms in Auschwitz I was Block Six - there were all the registed photos of some of those who had been killed in Auschwitz. Below each photo was their birth date, arrival date and date they died. Some only lasted days, some lasted a year to the day of their arrival. The halls were lined with the photos; the eyes gave away all the terror and misery they’d felt in Auschwitz. That was chilling and tingly.

We then caught the shuttle acrosss to Birkenau, which was Auschwitz II, a purpose built death camp. It was built but the inmates of Auchwitz I and the size was astonishing; it was massive. Our arrival into Birkenua was certainly chilling and slighting tingly. As far was the eye could see the remains of brick chimeys and barb wire. From the arrival gate railway tracks lead all the way to the crematories for a speeder service. It was a total of 100,000 men, women and children who reached Birkenau in August 1944 alone. Here we were able to see the terrible conditions that people surved in. It hits you here, the vast space, the remains of history that the Nazi's tried to cover up. The autrosities. Here it hit us. The thing that got to me was from what we had previously been taught in history about the holocaust, it wasn't just the Jews, it was the Poles, Czechs, Russian POWs, gays, disabled and Romas. Towards the end of the war, they had extended the railway track all the way to the crematories to get rid of people quicker. At the end of the railway was the remains of those crematoria, and gas cambers. The SS had blown them up to conseal their crimes.

The next day we headed to Warsaw. We hadn’t heard much good about Warsaw and they were right. There wasn’t a lot to see and the city felt so fake. Let me explain. During the second war world many cities in Europe were flattened by bombs. And rebuilt in the orginal style. Most city looked amazing, like nothing had ever been destroyed, but Warsaw was different. With over 80% of the city destroyed everything was rebuilt after 1945 but made to look like it was from hundreds of years before. Very much like a film set.

It was lucky we only had one day in Warsaw because there really wasn’t much to see, by the time we arrange our train to Berlin, we spent the after exploring the old city, most of which is now UNESCO protected. We tried to have a look at the cities churches, however they had weddings in them. Not just one but back to back weddings til 8pm. We went to the old market square where there was street performers and lots of people. It had a very positive and fun atmosphere. Our last night in Poland was celebrated in a great Polish Restaurant in the city and it was really cheap. Both Stephen and I had traditional polish cuisine and it was sooo yummy.

The next day was an early start to Germany. A week in Germany, we are both excited about.

Hope everyone is well.

Lots of Love,
Michelle and Stephen.
xoxox

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Photos

The Gate Into Auschwitz
Through work bring Freedom, is what the prisoners saw everyday when they left for work and arrived back each night.

Birkenau
The main entrance into the camp.

A Block At Birkenau
The Nazi's tried to burn down all the blocks when they left Poland but some, like this one, were left standing.

Birkenau
Looking down the railway tracks to the main entrance. Behind us is the gas chambers.

Parliament House
In Warsaw, this is where the President lives. You can't see them but there was armed guards marching through the coloums in the background.

A Polish Wedding Car
One of the many cars we saw during our Saturday in Warsaw.

A Monument to the Warsaw Uprising
This was a failed uprising by the Poles in 1944 after which the Nazi's really stepped up the pace in destroying Warsaw.

Comments

[Travelling Sar]

Interesting to read your thourghts on Auschwitz, I really wanted to go but didn't get there. Visited two camps Dachow (the very first) where I was fortunate to meet and speak to a surviver and another which made me feel physically sick. Where are you now?