Krakow

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After Prague, I had a few days before I was going to meet up with my friends in Budapest. So I decided to take advantage of my geographical location and head to Krakow on my own. I had heard really great things and so I wanted to see it for myself. I hopped on the train and headed for my next destination. Halfway through the train ride I decided to change seats because a better one had come available and as I was pulling my Roots bag down the aisle a guy says “hey Roots, are you from Canada?” Of course I said yes, and began to talk to him and his girlfriend. They were from Winnipeg and are traveling Europe for 7 months. They were also obviously heading to Krakow, but had not booked a hostel yet so they asked me where I was staying, so I told them and they said it sounded good and that they would walk with me to the hostel and see if they could get in that way I wouldn’t have to walk on my own, since it was getting late. So that was nice. We all got off the train and were trying to figure out what way to go when we were greeted by a young man from Krakow who asked us where we wanted to go and we gave him the address and he took us right to our hostel. Very good first impression of the people of Krakow!!!

The next morning I got up pretty early to head out and tour around the city. I had read about a big Market that was being held that day and I wanted to check it out so the Winnipeg couple and I headed out to check it out. This market was hilarious. It was just a ton of people selling all their old stuff. It was like a massive flea market. People just had blankets set out on the ground with old nuts and bolts for sale. People were selling old phone cards and really old cell phones. There were parts of old computers for sale, and random wires. It was just a bunch of crap to us, but there were so many locals there looking at everything and loving it. It was really quite interesting.

After checking out the market we headed over to the Kazimierz, which is the 600 year old Jewish quarter. On the eve of WWII, 68,000 Jews lived in the Krakow area, many of them in Kazimierz. The Nazis deported all by March 1943, many to nearby Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp. Only about 100 practicing Jews now live in Kazimierz. We picked up a “do your own walking tour” pamphlet at the hostel so we followed that so we could see all the sights in this district as well as get the info on them. The Jewish district has many synagogues and they are all really neat. The synagogues are so much different than all the Cathedral’s you see. They are just simple and to the point, it is actually refreshing to see things like this at this point. The “Old Synagogue” we went to see had a museum in it on Jewish life and it was really interesting. I didn’t know that much about the religion before so it was great to lean about it. The traditional Jewish practices are very strict and the holidays very important. In this district we also saw the tiny Remuh Synagogue which is surrounded by Remuh’s Cemetary, which has graves dating to the plague of 1551-1552 and a wall constructed form tombstones recovered after WWII. For centuries, the cemetery was covered with sand, protecting it from 19th century Austrian Invaders as well as from the Nazis who used the area as a garbage dump. Another interesting thing I observed while touring this area is that instead of laying flowers on the gravesites in Jewish graveyards they put rocks on them. I was told this is because rocks never die. We also saw the Jewish Temple which was much more elaborate and very pretty.

After all this touring we were pretty hungry so we decided to go to this lovely little bagel shop that was recommended in my travel book. It was delicious! Did you know that According to legend, a Jewish baker in Vienna concocted the first bagel in 1683 as a gift to the Polish king Jan Sobieski to thank him for routing Turkish invaders. The bread was shaped like a stirrup “beugal” in honor of Sobieski’s heroic horsemanship. The historical record however, first spots the bagel in Krakow in 1610: community regulations decreed that bagels be given to pregnant women for easy childbirth, and to teething babies. In Krakow today, street vendors sell the Polish descendant of the original bagel, a crisp ring of sweet bread known as obwarzanki.

After lunch we continued our tour. We headed back to Stare Miasto which is the main square, where we went inside St. Mary’s Church. This is of course another elaborate and very beautiful church. The unique thing about this church is that every hour a trumpet call blares from the tower. It cuts off abruptly to recall the near- destruction of Krakow in 1241, when invading Tatars shot down the trumpeter as he attempted to warn the city. We also walked through the Cloth Hall which houses tons of stands where people sell beautiful amber jewelry and souvenirs.

After all our touring it was time for a break so we just headed for the hostel (Mama’s Hostel) and made supper there as it had great kitchen facilities. This hostel offered great services including a big flat screen TV in the common area so we just picked out a movie and relaxed for a night- it was great after so much traveling to have that option!

The next day the Winnipeg couple (Vaughn and Danielle), myself and an Australian guy named Dan all decided to go to Aushwitz- Birkenau together. It is estimated that 1.5 million people, mostly Jews were murdered and thousands more suffered unthinkable horrors in these Nazi concentration camps. As you walk into the entrance of Auschwitz you see these words on the gate: “Arbeit Macht Frei” which means work will set you free. We took a guided tour of the grounds and you see things here that bring the sheer enormity of the atrocities committed here into focus. On display inside one of the buildings are piles of suitcases, glasses, shoes, and kilos of hair from the prisoners. The Nazis wasted nothing. Everything was saved from the prisoners and used for another purpose. They would even take the gold out of the dead prisoner’s teeth. It is horrifying. The guided tour is very good, but also very disturbing as the guide tells you all about what went on in the different buildings, how the prisoners were treated, they tell you about how they used children for medical experiments, and many more heartbreaking stories. After the tour of Auschwitz was done we continued on for our tour of Birkenau. Birkenau was built later in the war, when the Nazis developed a more brutally efficient means of killing mass numbers of people. Little is left if the camp today; most was destroyed by retreating Nazis to conceal the genocide. The gas chambers and crematorium are located at this camp and were destroyed as well. However, before they were destroyed the ovens were removed and taking to Berlin because the Nazis thought they would use them again. There are reconstructed train tracks here that were rebuilt to show us where the trains came in with the people on them. The tracks lead to the crematorium and gas chambers. Beside the crematorium lies a pond that is still gray form the ashes deposited there over 60 years ago. Seeing Auschwitz and Birkenau and hearing all that went on there is tough, but I felt it was something I had to see. It is hard to believe that events as horrible as the ones that took place at these camps even occurred, but they did, and I think it is important to visit these camps and learn about what went on so that we don’t forget and also to pay tribute to the victims of these camps.

We took the bus back into Krakow, and just made supper at the hostel again. Then we decided to go check out a local bar and so a bunch of is from the hostel went out and it was pretty fun. It was great that the hostel I was staying at was so sociable because I was on my own so it was great for meeting people!

The next morning I got up early and headed for Wielicka which is a 700 year old salt mine. Pious Poles carved the immense underground complex of chambers out of salt in 1978. UNESCO declared the mine of the 12 most priceless monuments in the world. Inside the chambers everything is made from salt including the chandeliers, the relief works, the floor, and the statues. Everything that is inside the mine was done by ordinary miners. There are some amazing sculptures and carvings and these were all done by the miners that worked there. The most amazing part of the mine is St. Kinga’s Chapel. It is this huge chapel that took 3 miners 67 years to complete. There is a large altar, a chandelier, and many carvings of famous paintings including The Last Supper. It is truly an amazing sight. There are also many other interesting chambers in the mine, including lakes that have an air quality around them that is suppose to be very good for people who has asthma- so I guess that was good for me. The mine is no longer used to produce salt, but when it was in use, they used horses for power in the mine and the last horse was only taken out of the mine recently because of an animal rights group. However, the reason that the miners didn’t want the horse to leave the mine was because it was so dark in the mine and the horse had been down there for so long that he had adjusted to the dark. When the horse went up, he is now blind because the sun is too bright and his eyes cannot adjust (Just an interesting fact for you). To get to the mine you have to walk down 380 steps as the mien is quite far underground. Working in the mine was a very dangerous job as 10% of the workers lost their lives, but it was a very high paying job because the miners were paid in salt which at the time was worth a lot.

After seeing the salt mine I went to see Wawel Castle which is said to be an architectural masterpiece. Construction started in the 10th C and was remodeled in the 16th C, the castle contains 71 chambers, including a magnificent sequence of 16th C tapestries commissioned by the Royal Family. I went in to view the state rooms. I had seen many other palaces before this one, but this might very well have been my favourite. The rooms were so classy (unlike some of the way too overdone rooms I had seen in other castles). The whole place just looked timeless and I really liked that. After seeing the state rooms I just walked around the castle grounds which were also gorgeous and I also saw the Dragons Den at the base of the castle.

I then went to see Jagiellonian University which dates back to 1364, making it the third oldest university in Europe. Alumni include, astronomer Mikolaj Kopernik, or Copernicus and painter Jan Matejko.

I didn’t really think that Krakow would have a huge shopping scene, but wow was I wrong. Right beside the train station is definitely the biggest mall that I have seen in Europe. It has 3 floors and so many stores. So I walked around there for a bit, and was proud of myself because I never bought anything (well except some tiramisu ice cream- which was delicious by the way). Then I just got some supper at a nice little restaurant and headed back to the hostel to gather up my stuff and relax before catching the night train to Budapest. I had heard that night trains can be sketchy if you are not careful so it was great that another guy from my hostel was also taking the same train as me so we walked to the train station together. I had also heard that it is not good to be in a room by yourself (there are 3 beds per room) so I was happy to find a nice Polish girl in my room. But, she was traveling with a friend and when they found an empty room she left. So there I was by myself and I had been told not to be in a room by myself- ahh what to do? So I found the guy I knew from my hostel and they had an empty bed in their room so I stayed in there. Problem solved. We got our passports checked twice and it was kind of funny because there was me, a Japanese guy, and a Mexican guy in my room, and they always just looked at my passport, stamped it and gave it back, and they always asked the other two guys questions. It is so nice to be a Canadian! Anyway, the night train was just fine and I arrived in Budapest safely to start my next adventure. More to come on that…..

Hope all is well.

Lindsay

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Photos

Remuh Cemetary
One of the cemetaries in the Jewish Quarter that has the wall of the cemetary made out of tombstones that were broken during WWII.

Schindler's Factory
This is a picture of the entrance to Schindler's factory- the real factory and where parts of Schindler's list were filmed.

Birkenau
This is a view of the Birkenau concentration camp looking in a the camp through the barbed wire.

The unloading platform at Birkenau
This is where the trains would come in to the camp and unload the prisoners (mostly Jews) they would be sorted into two lines: those going straight to the gas chambers and those sent to work.

Wieliczka
Me inside one St King's Chapel in the Wielicka salt mine.

Me and the Dragon statue outside the Dragon's Den at Wawel Castle
Legend has it that a sheperd left a poisoned sheep outside the cave as bait and the dragon ate it and became so thisty that it drankitself to death at the Wisia River.

Out for the nigtht
L-R: Raffi, Dan, Vaughn, Me, Danielle out at a bar close to our hostel. There are all people I met at the hostel and we had a great time!

Wawl
L-R: Raffi, Dan, Vaughn, Me, Danielle out at a bar close to our hostel. There are all people I met at the hostel and we had a great time!