Krakow / Krakau

Krakow is the second most popular city in Poland, and some says that there is more to see in Krakow than in Warsaw, the capital. It is also the first european country that I visited cities other than the capital. But guess what? It happens to be one of my favourite city!

Krakow is a really really small city, other than the old town square, there is pretty much nothing else. That also means that krakow is very walkable, we walk from train station to hostel, hostel to old town, everything is just at most 10 minutes walk away!

So after we got everything settled in 'Mosquito hostel' (nope, no mosquito at all, but still, what a name for a place to sleep!), we went to old town for lunch! Above is some old communist canteen, where they used to sell food dirt cheap, and today, the food there is still consider relatively cheap. All thanks to hostel world guide for attractions and food recommendations. (I was responsible for both prague and krakow itinerary and i totally dig hostelworld guide <3>

walking around old town... oh god, i miss good weather like this, whereby i can just pull on a t-shirt and shorts. Nowadays, I am layering myself up like a mommy before stepping out of the house!



many red bricks building, i don't know why.



as we walked along, i found this... very interested gallery... see below...


The lady in this photo is so pretty but fantasy-like.
some street performance at the old town square... and when it is time to show some TOKEN of appreciation, we walked off :P

other than busy exploring the old town, we were busy bringing our laundry to and fro the laundry shop. All 5 of us were infected by some bed bug and had ugly red marks on most of the visible parts of our body :S luckily its all healed right now.
so finally when we all felt better with clean clothes (to lighten load, we usually wear our clothes for 2, 3 days), we are ready to see the night of krakow.




The old castle. But bad camera.


Dinner time, again, recommended by hostel world guide. We had bread soup bowls! It was extremely delicious, gosh, I miss the soup!

Being a extreme glutton, I ordered polish dumplings along with my huge bowl of soup.

The settings of the restaurant is so country-style like! Love it!

I soon raised my white flag and gave up finishing my food. Its the one where the red bag is. But the rest continued to finished the dumplings and attempted to finish the bread bowl as well. Bear in mind, the size of the bowl is really HUGE!


We woke up extra early the next morning because we had 2 guided tour to catch!
First up was the Auschwitz concentration camp, where the Nazi kept the jews...

"Arbeit macht frei", the infamous phrase that appeared in all concentration camp.... It makes work gives freedom anyway.
There was a sense of grieveness when we walked around the camp... as if we didn't need any reminder, we, tourists, kept silent when we were walking through the exhibition in the buildings that torture used to be carried out...
and unfortunately, i couldn't share indoor photos with you.


rows of red brick buildings. It was some factory before the Nazis took over.


Watch tower, see the fence before it, the officers were given permission to shoot anyone dead if they were to cross the fence. Therefore, there is a "stop cum danger" sign in front of the tower.
can you guess what is this for?


Its the shooting wall... Thousands were shot dead in front of this wall, one by one...
story goes that the Nazi lied to the polish and jews that such concentration camps provide them with a better living condition with job that pays well. They were told to pack all their valuable, man were allowed to bring in their whole family.. but the train that they boarded, sent them to destination "death"....
as soon as they arrived in the camp, they were told to leave their valuable behind, which were of course, confiscated by the Nazis. People are separated into fit and unfit, those unfit ones were told to strip and shower. But what followed was to be killed in the gas chamber...

The fit ones weren't much better, or maybe, in my point of view, even worse-fated. They had to work something like 19 hours everyday, with just little bread each day, living conditions are not even conceivable....

There is also Auschwitz camp II. Today, the camps are preserved and serve to educate public about such bitter past, free.

Death railway....

Bunk beds, something like 8 mens to be squeeze on each bed. The whole place was built by the prisoners in less than 2 years, thus there was no budget and time for radiator installation. Imagine winter in such conditions....

Bird-eye view from the watch tower... See how massive the whole camp II is.. Most of the houses are destroyed in the background.

I left the camps with so much more knowledge about this ugly past. Learning about the truthful past is sometimes so much more enjoyable than going in say theme park for rides.

We had some time for quick lunch, again, around old town...


Brezel stand found anywhere. But i personally find it too hard and salty :P

Durum kebab! The best one that I ever had so far in europe! How i wish i have time to go istanbul though =(

Next up is a salt-mine tour. Its the largest in the world i think! In our 3 hour tour, we only covered 2% of the whole mine, so just imagine! Also, to access the salt mine, we had to climb DOWN something like 57 levels! It might well be world's tallest building, built underneath the ground :S

Legend said that the queen from somewhere dreamt of the possibility of such salt mine and indeed found it!

salt crystals.. you could literally taste any part of the mine you like, but i dare not :P

There were many sculptures within as well.

The church hall, all made of salt, including the chandelions!


Even 'The Last Supper' was there! Yes yes, made of salt!
The tour guide also told us that the air ventilation is very good within the mine and it healed his asthmatic problem. So we breath and we breath....
The whole salt mine tour was amazing! Amazing about what else you could do with the salt, other than consuming it...
Oh yea, today, salt is still being yield from the mine, but at a much lower productivity rate than before.

With that, we ended our poland trip but definitely not forgetting what the tour guides have taught us. It was definitely my 2 favourite guided tours!