 | KrakowCliffs Notes Version:
Day 1, hit up Castle, ate pieroguis, went to Salt Mine, met up with Mehul and Lucasz for dinner
Day 2, went to flea market and then did day trip to Catholic Disneyland
Day 3, did some shopping at Cloth Market before a day trip to Auschwitz |
Day 1 (Salt Mine) We arrived in Krakow very early in the morning. We had told the hostel that we would be getting in early, but when we got to the door and rang the buzzer there was no answer. I was able to use my phone to connect to their wifi and use Skype to give them a call. Apparently, I
a) woke them up
b) through broken Polish commanded them to speak English ( I was trying to ask if they spoke English but missed a couple key phrases)
They forgave me though and we dropped off our bags and went off to explore. |
7400 km is only like 50 miles, Rochester is right around the corner |
There really isn't much to do in Krakow at 8 a.m. as almost everything is closed. However, the castle's external grounds were open so we headed over there.. Apparently, in one of the courtyards there is a corner known as the chakra. It is one of only a few places on Earth including Mecca and Jerusalem that has focused spiritual energy. We went and soaked in the energy of the chakra, felt momentarily at one with the universe, and then headed over to the Wawel Cathedral, a big church within the castle grounds, which had opened its doors by this time in the morning.
Chakra baby, it's all about the chakra | |
Wawel Cathedral |
It was still fairly early in the morning when we finished walking around the castle so we decided to head downtown to the main square. We were strolling hand in hand, excited to spend the first full day together alone without any other people that we knew hanging around. While discussing our hatred for all people not us, we heard 'Rutar' and then we turned around and saw Mehul walking toward us. Mehul wasn't supposed to be in Krakow on this day so it was a bit surprising.We hung out with him for a bit and were reunited with our camera which was definitely good. We made some dinner plans and split up again because Colleen and I wanted to hit up the salt mine after lunch.
Colleen would kick my ass if I didn't mention the Polish food we had in Krakow. For lunch, we went and got wood fired pierogi. Pierogi are essentially little stuffed dumplings that are big in Poland. Colleen's dad was Polish, so they spent a lot of time making those things, and we were on a quest to find ones in Poland that best matched their homemade ones. After eating some excellent pierogi, but not quite up to Colleen's standards, we went to the salt mine.
| The Wieliczka Salt Mine was a short bus ride away from downtown Krakow. It is no longer operational and serves solely as a tourist stop, but the mines go about 100 feet deep and there are about 200 miles of underground passages. You have to have a guide to go into the mines, and to get down to the bottom you have to climb down steps (378 of them). The main draw to the mines is a bunch of salt sculptures at various spots on the tour and a giant cathedral dug out of the salt with a series of sculptures and carvings in the walls. The most entertaining aspect of the mine for me was that it was definitely not built for people six and a half feet tall, so I spent most of the time in the corridors hunchbacked. At the end of the tour, we were all loaded into the sketchiest elevator ever. When the thing was full, they shoved a few more people in there and the one minute ride was accompanied by someone crying the entire way up. I'm naturally claustrophobic so I held Colleen's hand to stop from crying, but she told me it wasn't her whose hand I was holding after we got off. That probably explains why that dude winked at me when we got off. Oh well. |
Not a lot of room for 6'5"(2m) people. Put miner right along jockey and astronaut for professions that I'm too tall for, though I'm very useful for getting things off the top shelf |
That night we met up with Mehul, Lucasz (Mehul's friend from high school who lives in Poland), and Lucasz's wife. We ordered pierogi again as one of the dishes but because we were eating out on the main square we fear that the pierogi was factory processed and wasn't homemade at all. They were still good, but Colleen wasn't satisfied yet. Luckily, after being married to me for three years Colleen was used to disappointment. |
Day 2 (Kalwaria Zebrydowska)The next day we slept in until well after 9 a.m. Refreshing. Feeling a little guilty about our late start we were determined to spend some time in Krakow and make another day trip out of the city. We started out in Krakow by going to the Flea Market. We were told that it wasn't very touristy there and as we are self-hating tourists that sounded like a good plan. We definitely went to the right place as the place was packed with locals. Most of the stuff held little interest to me, although I did find a dubbed Polish version of 'Universal Soldier' but with the little Polish I knew I would have probably told him I loved him (Colleen taught me that one) instead of asking how much. It's a universal constant in all countries that when a bartering session begins by professing love, it puts you at a significant disadvantage to get the best deal. There was also a Hillary Clinton novel, in English no less, that I was going to get for my brother-in-law who is the biggest Hillary fan out there but I passed on that as well.
Once we were done with the flea market we grabbed lunch at a little pizzeria. I was a rebel and ordered pizza but Colleen wasn't giving up the pierogi dream yet and she ordered them. Yes, in Poland, even pizzerias serve pierogi. It was a great move though because the pierogis that came out were delicious and clearly homemade. I also ordered this beet soup which was cool because it came in a mug. That worked out well because it was bright red and looked like blood so I got to act out my Twilight badass Dracula fantasies. |
Finally, the perfect pierogi ... and at a pizzeria |
After lunch, we hopped on a bus to the town of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, which we knew nothing about except for the fact that our hostel said it had beautiful trails and it showed off Poland's Catholic side. We arrived in the town and aimlessly walked for about a half an hour towards the general direction of a church we thought we saw on the top of a hill. When we got to said church, what we thought was a quiet town was actually quite the tourist stop. There were rows of charter buses in a row and hundreds of people mulling around the church. We bought a map from a little souvenir stand and came to the realization that we had stumbled upon Catholic Disneyland.
| One of the huge draws of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is two interweaving trails (one for Mary, one for Jesus) around the mountain with each loop being a few kilometers. One loop goes clockwise, the other counterclockwise, but the loops are so close together you can do both at the same time. Along the loops are dozens of small chapels, which are essentially the Stations of the Cross for Jesus's loop and assorted other events pertaining to Mary for her loop. Even if you are complete heathens or really bad Catholics like us you would be hard pressed not to enjoy the loop(s) just based on the scenery alone. After doing essentially the full loop, we headed back to the bus station to go back to Krakow. |
One of the mini-chapels along the trail. FYI, I believe this was the one for Pontius Pilate passing judgement. |
As an aside, Poland has these interesting little minibuses. As far as I could tell, they have a set start point and end point, which are in themselves very reasonable in price. However, the cool thing is that you can just flag them down and hop on and pay like fifty cents to just ride for a little bit and then get off wherever you want as long as your stop isn't too far out of the way. I prefer risking my life hitchhiking to save that fifty cents when in foreign countries but I just thought I'd throw it out there. We ended up taking a minibus home from Catholic Disneyland but I was too scared to ask the driver to drop us off at our hostel which was essentially on the way so we just rode all the way home.
For dinner we went to a Ukrainian restaurant which was probably my favorite restaurant in Krakow. The important footnote to dinner was that it was the first meal in Poland where neither me or Colleen ordered pierogis ... though Colleen did order galumpkies. |
Day 3 (Auschwitz) | We woke up and went to the Cloth Market for some souvenir shopping. The Cloth Market is this big indoor/outdoor market that has tons of stands set up where people sell homemade trinkets and amber jewelry. Unfortunately, a good chunk of it was under construction while we were there. |
Cloth Market very early, before most stands were opened up |
After the market, we headed toward the bus station to go to Auschwitz. On the way there, we saw one of the more amusing sites that was a common theme in the Czech Republic and Poland, mainly people just peeing wherever they want. In Prague, we saw a guy just walking through a park that decided to just whip it out and relieve himself right there. I guess it's completely legit but only if you're a man. Sorry ladies, life's not fair. Apparently, it makes potty training easier with the go when you want to freedom employed by these countries. By the bus station we saw a mom holding her toddler up while he did his business. I guess if you're a girl you can get away with it if you're a kid, because we saw a couple parents proudly cheering on their toddler daughter as she watered the crops in one of the fields we walked by in Catholic Disneyland.
We got to Auschwitz in early afternoon and because it was still peak season we needed to sign up for a tour. It's definitely a shocking place to visit and I have no regrets about going, even if you are essentially spending an entire day staring into the face of just how cruel humans can be when given a chance. I do recommend it to anyone who gets a chance to go.
The tour started with a video about the liberation of the concentration camp and then we were taken into Auschwitz I. Auschwitz I is the smaller of the two complexes and was a converted army barracks. Auschwitz I had some of the barracks set up as mini-museums and it's in these buildings that some of the most powerful images of the Holocaust appear. For instance, there's essentially an entire room of discarded shoes from the victims, with the collection of children's shoes essentially powerful. In a random and very morbid side note, Colleen learned her maiden name, Przybyla, means past tense arrival of a woman. There were pictures of some of the victims with their arrival dates to Auschwitz and we noted that for the women the dates said 'Przybyla' next to them. We verified the meaning with our tour guide later on. It was quite the haunting way to discover that tidbit of knowledge.
Entrance to Auschwitz I, the translation is "Work makes (one) free" |
After Auschwitz I, we had the choice to continue on to Auschwitz II with the guide, though for that complex it wasn't required. I highlighted some of the displays in Auschwitz I and its imagery, but for Auschwitz II the real power of the experience comes from the overwhelming size of the complex. It was built almost exclusively for a role as an extermination camp and the sheer size of it was so daunting when thinking about what its role was. Just walking from one end to the other takes about a half hour and you can't even see one end of the complex from the other.
Front entrance with guard tower at Auschwitz II with tracks leading straight through the middle of the camp | |
The end of the tracks, while still well within the complex you are far enough away to not be able to see the guard tower in the distance |
When we got back from Auschwitz, we started packing. We realized we had a long train ride the next day that would go past lunch so we bought a large package of pierogi for our trip. Technically, they were supposed to be cooked before you ate them but the filling was cabbage and the dough looked somewhat cooked already so we figured we were safe. The next morning we jumped on the train to Bratislava.
Pierogis for the train, forget the fact they were uncooked | |
Goodbye Krakow ... looking back at Saint Mary's Church as the sun was coming up on our walk to the train |
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