In honor of the long weekend, we went to Krakow, Poland with a friend from my work. And of course, we had a really good time. Krakow was beautiful. I didn't really know what to expect from this city as I had never really seen pictures or even heard a bunch about it, and I was surprised at how beautiful it was. I reminded me a bit of Prague, Jace felt like it reminded him more of Vienna.
So, our weekend in a nutshell, plus loads of pictures.
We took the overnight train to get there, it was an 9 hour journey, we arrived at 6:30 AM. We had a tiny train compartment that could potentially sleep 6 people, luckily it was just us 3. Very little sleep was to be had, but it was nice to be able to lay flat if nothing else, and we all felt rested enough for the day.
Friday: Got off the train, dropped our bags at the hostel, went for breakfast and coffee. We had gotten information of a free walking tour, so we went to the meeting place, but no one was there to take us touring. Turns out Friday was also a special day for Poland. There was a university holiday, and all the college students gathered on the square at noon. Many in costumes. We still don't really know why. And we also were at the square at noon, in the middle of it all.
We left the craziness after a little while and did our own walking through Krakow. We walked to the castle and along the river, had a massive lunch which also doubled as dinner. It was nice.
Saturday was a difficult day. We went to Auschwitz - the biggest of the concentration camps. It's difficult to really describe this. It was intense, and moving, and incredibly sad. We went to 2 different camps. The first one was still fully intact and turned into a museum. We saw some really profound evidence of the evil and vastness of it all. The second camp was the main one, and too massive for belief. A lot of the buildings had been removed, but all the land was still there and you could still see the size of it. While this part was difficult, I am glad we went. I felt like it was important to do so.
Sunday was a short day as we had a train to catch. Oliver did a tour of the Jewish Quarter on his own and Jace and I walked to some hills that we had seen advertised. We didn't even get to climb it though because it took us an hour and a half to walk there, and pretty much as soon as we got there we had to leave to meet Oliver and catch our train. We didn't take a night train again, and I am glad we didn't. For one, it was nice to see the countryside, and two, it was great to have a good night's sleep in my own bed before going to work the next day.
Picture time!
On the train
sitting on the middle bed. There were 3 on each side
part of the student gathering
the costumes were everywhere, and throughout the day as well
Dragon outside of the castle, there were dragons all over Krakow
We found this great antique market. They had old photo albums, and war pins.
We saw some fire-dancers walking down the street
being artsy
and again
the entrance, it says "work makes you free"
This was about a third of the size of the camp, it was enormous, and there were actually plans in the works to expand it.
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