We arrived on Thursday night to a lovely man named Brov, holding up my name on a sign. Our fabulous accommodation, Globtroter Krakow, had arranged for airport transfers at just a small fraction more. Poland = delightfully cheap. Driven to our amazingly central accommodation, we were given a firsthand guide into the things to eat and the places to see. We also had an incredibly interesting chat about the Polish economy and how thousands immigrated to the UK in search of jobs and to get away from the post-communism hold, when Poland joined the EU. Now times are changing and many are returning, and after our fleeting four day visit, it is easy to see why. Brov was our first insight into how kind, helpful and truly good at heart Polish people are. They seem wiser than most and have suffered at the hands of Nazi German, Communist Russia and so much more over the years, yet they still remain decent.
We woke up on Friday torn between two minds – exploring this beautiful city, or waving our metaphorical Union Jack flags as we watched the union between Kate and Wills! We opted for the latter and after spending half an hour or so trying to find a place that was showing the wedding, we grabbed a few obwarzanki, popular Polish pretzel type things, and headed back to our pad to watch the wedding on our only English channel – CNN. It would have been wonderful to have been in London for the big day, but a four day bank holiday weekend was just too much temptation!
We then hit the town square, which is the largest medieval square in Europe don’t you know, where we did some more exploring before sitting down for our first serving of hearty Polish food (hearty being the key word). Brad ordered bigos, a type of fermented cabbage and sausage stew, which was suggested by Brov, while I opted for pierogi ruski – dumplings stuffed with cottage cheese and potato, covered in fried onion. The food is as delicious as it sounds.
We then headed towards Wawel Hill which is home to beautiful castles, gardens and cathedrals, before strolling through Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter of Poland – basically where Krakow’s Jewish population lived before all 65,000 were wiped out in the holocaust. A little piece of information – Schindler’s List is about Krakow’s Jews and is set in Kazimierz.
We explored the old markets and synagogues, before heading back to the old town to check out the famous souvenir markets, which are famed for their amber, which is found all over Poland. We didn’t purchase any of the orange jewels, but we did pick up a few free beer vouchers which very much came in handy later that night!
Brad had done his research and had found a place called Chlopski Jadlo, which is a fantastic Polish restaurant that came very much recommended, so off we trotted to stuff our faces once more. Despite a rocky start with the free starter which consisted of bread with a cheese type spread, as well as a tub of lard with pork fat chunks (literally), our appetite quickly picked up when our pierogis were served, followed by my potato pancakes with goulash and Brad’s roulade and dumplings. We just can’t get enough of that Polish food, and Dad – you would be all over it like a rash! Next stop, a cute little bar on the river playing Polski music, where we claimed our free beer vouchers! I was a little tipsy by this stage and keen to carry the night on to check out the nightlife Krakow is famed for, but Brad was feeling far too bloated to even contemplate another sip of beer, and at 12.30am I could hardly argue!
The next day we had booked a trip out to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Many people don’t realise just how huge Aushwitz was, in fact it is split over three camps and was the Nazi’s largest concentration/ death camp. We went on a guided tour with a Polish man who was incredibly moving and informative. At the end he truly had us near tears when he reminded us that this happened only 60 years ago, not even a generation, in civilised Europe. He talked about how it all started with an ideology, just as many ideologies are present today, and at this stage there was never even a suggestion of what it would become, but of course, it did. He explained how the Jewish were a supposedly easy target – sadly there has always been an undercurrent of anti-Semitism in Europe and as the Jewish had no army, they were an easy target. He concluded with saying how this happened only 60 years ago because no one spoke up, reminding us that since the holocaust it has happened several times again – in Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur.
I won’t go into too much detail – we saw the piles of hair, shoes and suitcases, photographs and even a shocking video which showed the camp’s liberation from the Red Army. In the video it’s difficult not to see the emaciated corpses lying on the ground. The suitcases were the worst for me – because the Western European Jews had little idea of what was going on, they still had hope, so when they were shipped to Auschwitz in cattle trucks they took their suitcases, filled with their belongings. The suitcases had names and birthdays written on them, little love hearts and drawings on some – listing addresses of many places we have been to. The shocking thing is nearly all of these people were killed instantly upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Birkenau was purely a death camp and to this day, has the most sombre sad atmosphere – birds don’t seem to fly there, you can see the remains of hundreds of dorms (each sleeping 800 men) and huge gas chambers (the Nazis tried to blow a lot of it up to cover up what they had done)... It’s a haunting place.
I know it isn’t nice to hear about it, but as our guide said – those that don’t know about history, are sure to live through it again. We couldn’t even fathom what had happened and on what scale – it defies belief and certainly leaves its mark on you. Understandably, we didn’t really feel like doing much that evening after such a big day, so we headed to a local restaurant, stuffed our face with more Polish food and retired to our room to watch Harry Potter (again!).
The next day we had thought we’d head to Warsaw for the day, which is quite far away but with the speedy Polish trains you’re there in a few hours. Unfortunately the people at the ticket office weren’t particularly helpful due to the language barrier and it seemed that we’d have to wait until 1pm to catch the next train, so it wasn’t worth it. Instead we headed out Wieliczka to visit the famous Salt Mines, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and in my opinion, an absolute waste of life. After waiting outside in the pouring rain for an hour to catch the obligatory tour, we traipsed down 120 metres into the earth for a three hour tour looking at all sorts of utter shite made out of salt. I couldn’t have cared less. This is all I’m going to say about Wieliczka as quite frankly, I don’t want to waste any more of the time left in my life writing about it. I had more fun at Auschwitz.
Three hours later we were back in Krakow (praise be to the lord), where we were greeted with all sorts of festivities as of course it was 1 May 2011, the day on which Jean Paul II was beautified. Given he’s Polish, Jean Paul is all the rage in Poland and the entire town square was turned into a giant photo album, which was really quite a beautiful sight to behold. After relaxing in the town square and looking at sucky salt statues all day, we were ravenous, so off we hopped for some more Polish cuisine. This time we headed down the Polish soup track, as well as 101 pierogis to accompany. Sour milk, barszcz (hot beetroot) and chicken buillon – soups to soothe the soul and each one more delicious than the last!
Today we awoke with a spring in our step – it was our last day in Krakow and we were keen to make the most of it, so with a couple of obwarzanki in hand we wandered through the twisting, turning streets, stumbling across all sorts of hidden gems – including a big market fair, complete with a fire-breathing dragon and deep fried cheese (my kind of market). We wandered along the river, made our way through the Jewish Quarter, ate up a storm, before relaxing in the sun in the town square, eating cake and sipping juice, watching the world go by. We then made our way to the neighbouring square, where Brad had a little snooze in the sun, and I watched the thousands of Polish children playing in the most beautiful water fountain. On the whole, Polish kids seems pretty smart, but there were a few slightly slower lemons amongst the bunch that didn’t quite get their timing right and ended up soaked to the skin – this was my favourite part!
By the time the sun had gone behind the clouds and I’d started to get a tad nervous that a creepy foreign woman would be reported to the Policja for lurking around the fountain and staring at the Polski children, I decided it was time to wake Brad up and spend our zlotys on one last meal. We found a gem of a place and spent a few hours in a cosy little dungeon restaurant, sipping at barszcz and chomping on pierogis, with only one minor incident where we dropped our digital camera into a stein of beer! Cést la vie!
A slow walk along the river and back to the markets, before we headed back to catch our transfer to the airport, where once again we were greeted by Brov – a lovely end to a lovely journey. Brov also told us that Osama Bin Laden had been killed – it seems our long weekend in Poland was at a time of historical importance. In years from now when people ask us where we were when Osama was killed, Kate and William were married, and Pope Jean Paul was beautified, we’ll be able to proudly remember our time in this beautiful Polish city.
xxx
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