All night I rode that bus and I hardly slept a wink. I was constantly worrying about making my connection in Warsaw correctly. The bus station that my Lux Express was dumping me at was 1 hour and 11 minutes of walking from the one where my Polski Bus was leaving in an hour and 20 minutes. And I had never been to downtown Warsaw. I studied and studied my downloaded offline map of downtown Warsaw and when the bus pulled into Warsaw Central at 5 am I was off like a sprinter from the blocks! I ran\walked for an hour while the sun rose on my left and the city began to wake up and I reached the bus just as people were boarding. My reward was another 5 hour bus ride. When I finally reached Glowny Dworzec Autobusary Crakow I didn't recognize my surroundings from my map and asked the driver if I was at Krakow Glowny. He said "next stop" so I patiently waited half an hour while people got on and off and the drivers changed. Then, as the engine of the bus started again, I doubted. So I asked the new driver the same question. This one spoke English. "You've been sitting here for half an hour!" I almoat went to Berlin.
And that's how I arrived in Krakow.
I chose Krakow over Warsaw for its proximity to Auschwitz, but in my travels everyone has said that Warsaw doesn't hold a candle to it in many other regards. It is a beautiful city and it appears to be thriving. The directions that I had to my Hostel were not fully adequate and I had to walk the streets at random until I found one that showed up on my sheet. When I finally reached the Hostel I wanted to crash onto the bed, but I knew that I had only a day and a half to see all that there was to see.
So off I went again to see the Wielicyka Salt Mines, which are half an hour bus ride from the city (more bus). In ye olden days salt was a very valuable commodity (you will remember that Tallinn was built on salt), and these mines have been in operation since the 16th century and go down over 300 meters (although the tour only went down 130). It also was 75 zloty (25 dollars) to get in. But when I was down in the mine I could see that it worth every zloty. (bz the waz I hate this freaking polish kezboard that has all the letters switched around and i cant figure out how to make question marks, apostrophes or hyphens!)
The tour lasted for 3 hours and we walked over a mile of mine shafts (there are over 700 km of shafts) and we visited 20 chambers, some of which were larger than cathedrals and other which had salt brine lakes. The star attraction is a chamber that was hollowed out into a cathedral, but completely from salt. It was done by three miners over the course of 60 years in their spare time. It was so beautiful that I cried. The guide said that people hold weddings there now. Can you imagine being married in a cathedral 300 feet under the earth!
I do apologize for my pictures. I only have my 50mm lens which means that everything is far too zoomed in.
I took the bus back to Krakow and went grocery shopping, which was very difficult because no one spoke English. I wanted to buy a certain amount of Polish sausage. After two trips through the check out and lots of embarassment I made off with my hunk of meat and fried it up and devoured it. Then I slept for a very long time.
On Sunday I decided to go to Auschwitz instead of to church. It is (of course) an hour bus ride from Krakow and I had written on my notes that I wanted to get in before 10 am. But I couldnt remember why I had written that, so I decided to sleep in. When I arrived it was clear. The place was crawling with tourists. I bought a ticket (after first exploring to see if there was any possible way to slip in) and waiting until the next English speaking tour began.
I cant really put into words the feelings that I felt as I walked through the chambers where 1,100,000 people were slaughtered. I saw a room containing 2 tons of human hair. Another which held 80,000 pairs of shoes, and another full of pots and pans. We looked at pictures of people on train platforms, literally being sentenced to death by the doctors as they got off the trains, and then we stood on those same platforms.
So many people were crammed into those barracks. So few survived. I cant describe it. It was overwhelming.
There were many Jews visiting the camps, many of whom were sporting Jewish flags on poles or draped over their backs. You will see some in the pictures. In one of the pictures you will see an old man, he was a prisoner at Auschwitz.
I got back to Krakow at about 4:30 and realised that I hadnt actually seen the city, so I headed for the center of old town. It was so beautiful! Krakow is an ancient city, and the medieval section is as well preserved as Tallinn but much larger. After Windsor castle, the royal castle in Krakow is the nicest I have ever seen. But windy streets, even if they are medieval, are starting to all look the same to me. A lady approached me and asked if I would like to go to a strip club. I said yes.
Just kidding. I told her I was absolutely not interested and went off to see if I could find a church with an evening service. I ended up in the biggest cathedral in the city (I think it was catholic but everything was in Polish). It was more decorated than any cathedral in the UK, every inch of the place was guilded or painted. I sat for about an hour but it was difficult to pay attention when I couldnt understand anything. No one else seemed to be interested either. It was actually a very depressing atmosphere.
After church I ate a sandwich from Subway. It tasted just like American Subway. Tomorrow I have to catch a 5 am bus to Prague. 13 more hours of bus! This has been a real blitz through Poland.
And that's how I arrived in Krakow.
I chose Krakow over Warsaw for its proximity to Auschwitz, but in my travels everyone has said that Warsaw doesn't hold a candle to it in many other regards. It is a beautiful city and it appears to be thriving. The directions that I had to my Hostel were not fully adequate and I had to walk the streets at random until I found one that showed up on my sheet. When I finally reached the Hostel I wanted to crash onto the bed, but I knew that I had only a day and a half to see all that there was to see.
So off I went again to see the Wielicyka Salt Mines, which are half an hour bus ride from the city (more bus). In ye olden days salt was a very valuable commodity (you will remember that Tallinn was built on salt), and these mines have been in operation since the 16th century and go down over 300 meters (although the tour only went down 130). It also was 75 zloty (25 dollars) to get in. But when I was down in the mine I could see that it worth every zloty. (bz the waz I hate this freaking polish kezboard that has all the letters switched around and i cant figure out how to make question marks, apostrophes or hyphens!)
The tour lasted for 3 hours and we walked over a mile of mine shafts (there are over 700 km of shafts) and we visited 20 chambers, some of which were larger than cathedrals and other which had salt brine lakes. The star attraction is a chamber that was hollowed out into a cathedral, but completely from salt. It was done by three miners over the course of 60 years in their spare time. It was so beautiful that I cried. The guide said that people hold weddings there now. Can you imagine being married in a cathedral 300 feet under the earth!
I do apologize for my pictures. I only have my 50mm lens which means that everything is far too zoomed in.
I took the bus back to Krakow and went grocery shopping, which was very difficult because no one spoke English. I wanted to buy a certain amount of Polish sausage. After two trips through the check out and lots of embarassment I made off with my hunk of meat and fried it up and devoured it. Then I slept for a very long time.
On Sunday I decided to go to Auschwitz instead of to church. It is (of course) an hour bus ride from Krakow and I had written on my notes that I wanted to get in before 10 am. But I couldnt remember why I had written that, so I decided to sleep in. When I arrived it was clear. The place was crawling with tourists. I bought a ticket (after first exploring to see if there was any possible way to slip in) and waiting until the next English speaking tour began.
I cant really put into words the feelings that I felt as I walked through the chambers where 1,100,000 people were slaughtered. I saw a room containing 2 tons of human hair. Another which held 80,000 pairs of shoes, and another full of pots and pans. We looked at pictures of people on train platforms, literally being sentenced to death by the doctors as they got off the trains, and then we stood on those same platforms.
So many people were crammed into those barracks. So few survived. I cant describe it. It was overwhelming.
There were many Jews visiting the camps, many of whom were sporting Jewish flags on poles or draped over their backs. You will see some in the pictures. In one of the pictures you will see an old man, he was a prisoner at Auschwitz.
I got back to Krakow at about 4:30 and realised that I hadnt actually seen the city, so I headed for the center of old town. It was so beautiful! Krakow is an ancient city, and the medieval section is as well preserved as Tallinn but much larger. After Windsor castle, the royal castle in Krakow is the nicest I have ever seen. But windy streets, even if they are medieval, are starting to all look the same to me. A lady approached me and asked if I would like to go to a strip club. I said yes.
Just kidding. I told her I was absolutely not interested and went off to see if I could find a church with an evening service. I ended up in the biggest cathedral in the city (I think it was catholic but everything was in Polish). It was more decorated than any cathedral in the UK, every inch of the place was guilded or painted. I sat for about an hour but it was difficult to pay attention when I couldnt understand anything. No one else seemed to be interested either. It was actually a very depressing atmosphere.
After church I ate a sandwich from Subway. It tasted just like American Subway. Tomorrow I have to catch a 5 am bus to Prague. 13 more hours of bus! This has been a real blitz through Poland.
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