Sock Monkey got back from Krakow over 5 weeks ago and hasn't written the report yet! So here it is:P and I decided to have a long weekend Krakow and flew out there at the very end of March. I had seen an ad in the paper for a long weekend but booked the same flights and hotel myself and got 4 days cheaper than what they were charging for 3. And better flight times & dates. Ha!
We arrived at Krakow airport (but my luggage didn't - I knew it wouldn't get on the same flight as me as soon as I handed it to that dimwit at Gatwick) and, after telling the luggage people where to send my rucksack on to, had a pit-stop-ette there where I had my first bottle of Polish beer then got a taxi to our home for the next 4 days.
This was the Qubus Hotel which is in Kazimierz which is where the Jewish Ghetto was. We really liked it round there. And it was sheer bliss to arrive back there every night
, go to the steam room, then the sauna, then have a swim and finish off with a lounge in the jacuzzi, before wandering out into the local area to explore. If you look at reviews of it loads of people mention that it is far out of town - yeah if you are bone idle and count a mile as a long walk. And it meant that we were far, far away from stag parties - Krakow unfortunately appears to becoming the new Prague. They must be so thrilled!That afternoon, after buying the least objectionable swimming costume I could find (there was no way I was missing the sauna, etc even for one night) we had a wander around Kazimierz. We tasted our first Polish food (its not what I would call health food but it is certainly filling). We went into Jewish Bookshop where I heard this for the first time (select the track 'Usual Happiness'). The band is called Kroke and I am now the very happy owner of a copy of their CD 'Ten Pieces to Save the World' which will always remind me of Krakow.
On our first fu
ll day we visited the Salt Mines.In the 'olden days' the miners carved statues out of the salt and also made chapels. Some of the statues are pretty amazing and some of the underground churches/chapels, etc are stunning but on the whole i
t is actually quite boring. And after schlepping down 350 stairs to get into the mine you have to get a horrible claustrophobic metal miner's lift back up. *shudders* So - It bit pants really and I would have rather done the Crazy Guides Interactive Communist Trip. Next time! And I may arrange for them to meet us at the airport with a band (costs extra).The next day we visited to Auschwitz & Birkenau. We didn't want to go as part of an organised tour and couldn't really be bothered to walk up to the bus station and take the bus so we hired a car & driver for the whole day. It did seem a bit wrong to turn up at a concentration camp in a Mercedes but we did travel in comfort, unlike those poor souls who were sent there during the war.
I didn't actually find Auschwitz that bad. In a bizarre way it looks like a holiday village. The buildings are made of stone and are in very good condition - I thought they would all be wooden. A lot of the buildings house special exhibitions: the plight of the Jews, the French,
(above: the gate bearing the words 'Work Sets You Free')
the Hungarians...the prisoners everyday lives, etc. By far the most disturbing was the exhibition entitled 'Evidence of Crimes'. This is where a lot of the possessions stolen from the prisoners is exhibited. It consists of shoes, clothing, suitcases, glasses, prosthetic limbs, cooking utensils, toothbrushes, and even the hair shaved from their heads. Basically everything the prisoners brought with them was stolen from them. Their money went into the Nazi bank account at
the Bundesbank, their clothes were sent back to Germany for the people there. I found it very moving that one suitcase has an advert pasted into the inside lid which showed the latest fashions for men and women that year
. Striped (above: the crematorium at Auschwitz, above right: a memorial at Auschwitz)
trousers, jacket & hat and clogs did not feature. What was disturbing was seeing the wall where prisoners were shot (in full view of other prisoners, naturally), gallows were dotted around the site, including the one which had been quickly erected so they could hang 12 people at once. There were walls and walls of photographs of prisoners with the date they entered the camp and the date they died. Most died after about a month. Then there was the crematorium. That was pretty harrowing to enter.
Birkenau on the other hand is absolutely horrible. When they ran out of space at Auschwitz they knocked down a couple of towns to build Auschwitz II, or Birkenau as it is called. They built it from the bricks from the villages they destro
yed to clear the space. First you enter the infamous gate where the trains packed with prisoners arrived. It truly does look like the gates to Hell. Here they were quickly assessed as
to whether they would live or die. Anyone old, young, disabled or ill were gassed immediately. The rest were basically used as slaves or experimented on.
(above: the main gate at Birkenau, right: inside the barracks)
It is absolutely massive. I reckon its about 8 times the size of Auschwitz. The atmosphere is horrible. At least half of it was either blown up or knocked down by the Nazis who wanted to hide their crimes when they fled and embarked on the Death March - they knew they were going to lose the war, so decided to march their prisoners back to Germany. The crematoria are just ruins, as are a lot of the barracks. You can get into many of the barracks which do still stand. This is a dreadful experience. The atmosphere is completely overwhelming. You can actually feel the suffering which still hangs in the air. When I took this photograph a white orb floated across the screen from left to right but didn't appear on the photograph. That could only have been the spirit of someone who had once been there in body.
After doing our two 'big' day rips we spent our third day visiting Reynek Glowny, the main square. The sq
uare itself is 200m long and is supposedly the biggest square in Europe. I can certainly believe that - its huge and has hoards of dive-bombing flying rats. Or 'pigeons' as some people insist in calling them.
St Catherine's Cathedral is in the corner of the square. The myth about its asymmetrical towers is that two brothers built one each and had a competition to see who could build the tallest. In reality one tower has a bell and the other doesn't. It is beautiful inside. Whereas in almost all other cathedrals the paint has faded and the walls are bare stone, this cathedral is still painted in beautiful vibrant colours. I thought that the people of Krakow must be very naughty judging by the bloody massive line for confession but P pointed out that it was almost Easter and everyone wanted their confessions heard before then. Dunnno why. I suppose its like doing your last minute Christmas shopping or something...
Then we had a wander through Cloth Hall. This is in the middle of the square and has lots of little stalls inside. Here you can buy all your tourist tat but they do have some nice stuff too. I bought an icon. I do love religious icons, although the two I have do look slightly odd sitting next to my statue of a Red Army Soldier. P got a rather fetching chess set at the absolute bargain of £3!
It was lunch time so we started looking for somewhere promising to eat when P suggested that we have a look in the turretty building thing at the other end of the square. It was great! Downstairs it is a little theatre and there is also a bar & restaurant. Its really lovely and very atmospheric. So we had to stay for one drink. P tried the fortified wine she had been eyeing up for the past couple of days. I have no idea how she drank it as it seemed to disintegrate the inside of my nose when I gave it a sniff.
P had been told about 'The Singer Bar' so we trundled over there one evening and it was really lovely. All the tables are old sewing machine tables complete with sewing machine and the whole place is candlelit.
There was also a really nice bar at the end
of our road. One night we went there and they had a jazz jamming session. There were about 4 musicians on stage and every so often one would leave and another would join them. It was great fun but bloody smokey. It feels so odd to be in a smokey bar nowadays.
We also took a wander to the Schindler factory which was close to our hotel. Its derelict now but there are plans to open it as a museum at the end of this year. The security guard let us go inside the factory itself. There's not much to see but no doubt that will be all different in a couple of months.
We really loved Krakow and will definitely return. There were a few things we didn't have time to see. And I do fancy the Crazy Tour.
trousers, jacket & hat and clogs did not feature. What was disturbing was seeing the wall where prisoners were shot (in full view of other prisoners, naturally), gallows were dotted around the site, including the one which had been quickly erected so they could hang 12 people at once. There were walls and walls of photographs of prisoners with the date they entered the camp and the date they died. Most died after about a month. Then there was the crematorium. That was pretty harrowing to enter.
Birkenau on the other hand is absolutely horrible. When they ran out of space at Auschwitz they knocked down a couple of towns to build Auschwitz II, or Birkenau as it is called. They built it from the bricks from the villages they destro
yed to clear the space. First you enter the infamous gate where the trains packed with prisoners arrived. It truly does look like the gates to Hell. Here they were quickly assessed as
to whether they would live or die. Anyone old, young, disabled or ill were gassed immediately. The rest were basically used as slaves or experimented on.(above: the main gate at Birkenau, right: inside the barracks)
It is absolutely massive. I reckon its about 8 times the size of Auschwitz. The atmosphere is horrible. At least half of it was either blown up or knocked down by the Nazis who wanted to hide their crimes when they fled and embarked on the Death March - they knew they were going to lose the war, so decided to march their prisoners back to Germany. The crematoria are just ruins, as are a lot of the barracks. You can get into many of the barracks which do still stand. This is a dreadful experience. The atmosphere is completely overwhelming. You can actually feel the suffering which still hangs in the air. When I took this photograph a white orb floated across the screen from left to right but didn't appear on the photograph. That could only have been the spirit of someone who had once been there in body.
After doing our two 'big' day rips we spent our third day visiting Reynek Glowny, the main square. The sq
uare itself is 200m long and is supposedly the biggest square in Europe. I can certainly believe that - its huge and has hoards of dive-bombing flying rats. Or 'pigeons' as some people insist in calling them.St Catherine's Cathedral is in the corner of the square. The myth about its asymmetrical towers is that two brothers built one each and had a competition to see who could build the tallest. In reality one tower has a bell and the other doesn't. It is beautiful inside. Whereas in almost all other cathedrals the paint has faded and the walls are bare stone, this cathedral is still painted in beautiful vibrant colours. I thought that the people of Krakow must be very naughty judging by the bloody massive line for confession but P pointed out that it was almost Easter and everyone wanted their confessions heard before then. Dunnno why. I suppose its like doing your last minute Christmas shopping or something...
Then we had a wander through Cloth Hall. This is in the middle of the square and has lots of little stalls inside. Here you can buy all your tourist tat but they do have some nice stuff too. I bought an icon. I do love religious icons, although the two I have do look slightly odd sitting next to my statue of a Red Army Soldier. P got a rather fetching chess set at the absolute bargain of £3!
It was lunch time so we started looking for somewhere promising to eat when P suggested that we have a look in the turretty building thing at the other end of the square. It was great! Downstairs it is a little theatre and there is also a bar & restaurant. Its really lovely and very atmospheric. So we had to stay for one drink. P tried the fortified wine she had been eyeing up for the past couple of days. I have no idea how she drank it as it seemed to disintegrate the inside of my nose when I gave it a sniff.
P had been told about 'The Singer Bar' so we trundled over there one evening and it was really lovely. All the tables are old sewing machine tables complete with sewing machine and the whole place is candlelit.
There was also a really nice bar at the end
of our road. One night we went there and they had a jazz jamming session. There were about 4 musicians on stage and every so often one would leave and another would join them. It was great fun but bloody smokey. It feels so odd to be in a smokey bar nowadays.We also took a wander to the Schindler factory which was close to our hotel. Its derelict now but there are plans to open it as a museum at the end of this year. The security guard let us go inside the factory itself. There's not much to see but no doubt that will be all different in a couple of months.
We really loved Krakow and will definitely return. There were a few things we didn't have time to see. And I do fancy the Crazy Tour.
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