The overnight train from Prague to Krakow didn’t really provide an ideal night’s sleep, but it was restful enough to have us ready to face the day (that, and multiple shots of espresso) when we arrived just before 8 a.m. I woke up an hour or so before that and opened the window to the sight of fields of golden wheat rolling by. The land is wide open with gentle hills and farms dotted with functional Soviet-era buildings here and there. Our final stop in central Krakow put us in the middle of a small shopping mall. The area shows some disrepair in surrounding buildings, but the city is really very clean overall. We checked our bags in and were off for the day. For day one we visited Auschwitz during the day and spent some time in the old quarter in Krakow for the evening. For our second day we visited the Wieliczka salt mine, Schindler factory museum, Wawel hill cathedral and castle, and closed out again in the old quarter.
Everything went pretty smoothly for this stop. All of us loved the food and got our fill of pierogies, potato dumplings, goulash, kielbasa, borsch, cream pies and all manner of Polish sweets. The conversion makes everything in Poland pretty inexpensive. Another day would’ve been nice to relax but we were able to hit the highlights in a couple of days. The salt mine here is worth the visit for anyone in Krakow. As for the visit to Auschwitz, I feel that I’m pretty familiar with the relevant history and didn’t expect to be surprised by much. However, I really wasn’t prepared for the scale of things at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). It’s really shocking to stand in the guard tower overlooking the massive train platform and imagine what it looked like and the horrors that took place there. Time has sterilized the place far more than, say, the “killing fields” in Cambodia, but the scale of what happened in that one place is just inconceivable.
I’m writing from another overnight train, this time on our way to Budapest, Hungary. We have a couple of days there as well. Below is our Poland photo gallery:
2 thoughts on “Just Enough Time To Spend Our Zlotys”
I saw Greg’s pictures and auschwitz is a place of unconceivable proportions. Love the food pics. You know me love to try the food everywhere i go. Anyway i learned about St John Nepomuceno. I did not know he was a real Saint. Pics dont change as others posts
They do now The pics!