Hotel Krakus Krakow

... the Concentration Camp. Humbling would put it lightly and the weather made it all the more authentic. They had rooms full of human hair that the Nazi's used for textiles. Rooms of shoes, pictures of the prisoners. We walked into rooms where they would make the prisoners stand all night, and then work all day, through cells. Stood in front of the "shooting wall" where the Nazi's would take innocent prisoners and shoot them in the back of the head. Then we made our way to ...

... town. They are everywhere. <br><br>Walked to the Wawel Castle grounds for a bit, then walked briefly to Kazmierez, an old Jewish area of the city. There wasn't much going on there as it was Saturday, but there was a really neat market on. Apparently this market changes every so often, today people were primarily selling war memorabilia. It was weird seeing Polish medals next to a lot of Nazi memorabilia. They had Hitler statues, plaques, SS ashtrays and lighters. It was so strange ...

The trains in Poland are less than accessible for the wheelchair, so we decided to rent a car from Ostrava, Czech Republic and drive to Krakow, Poland. Leaving Ostrava was no problem whatsoever, but once we crossed the border into Poland, we had some problems. Let's just say, the Poles are not known for their skills in cartography. None of the roads were clearly labeled on the map or on the road itself. A trip that should have taken us 90 ...

... another night to meet her. They were all studying in Manchester and since I went out with a girl in Manchester at one time it was not difficult to find some common ground. They were wild, raucous, and fantastic fun. As we chatted we were knocking back the drinks and to say it was a late night would be a huge understatement for the sun was up on a new day by the time we hit our beds. Rather surprisingly I was up and about by lunch time and although a little tired I was brimming with ...

... I was seated to catch my breath. Back to Auschwitz I, very interesting, very somber (of course) yet, very beautiful. Everything is still in tack. A couple of things have been replaced that were torn down. Many of the barracks are mini museums. That is were they display all of the shoes, luggage, eye glasses, clothes, etc. I knew they did this, but I had no idea the size. The shoe display was in a room at least 100 feet long, 10 feet high and down ...

... life-size displays of how they moved the salt back above ground. Most of the rooms are dedicated to famous Polish figures, so there are salt statues of them throughout the mines. There are waterfalls, rivers, and ponds of salt water throughout the mines, and they even used to give boat rides in one of the lakes until they decided it was too dangerous! The salt water trickles by you as you admire the beautiful salt creations. The main attraction is a cavernous ...

... stuck in Ostrowiec Swietokryzski). To my surprise the 40 km bus trip didn't cost a lot, then in Kielce I only waited few minutes before catching an express bus to Krakow, where I arrived around 8pm under a bloody rain fall. The stress was now to get in contact with my host who was residing out of town in Wieliczka. My phone was doing **** and I couldn't either call or send sms. My luck as been when Chris called me to see how I was doing and finally he connected me with my ...

Today was the start of my education on World War II. For the next few days I will basically have something every day which deals with WW II, mainly the Hollocaust. Today we started with a "Schindler's List" walking tour. We started in the movie's ghetto, which was not the actual ghetto that existed but rather it was just where Spielberg felt that he could create a better movie from. Before we started however we went by a bagel stand (theyre everywhere, Poland ...

... it was a waste of money and that i should take the bus which costs less than $1. So heading out, the bus was waiting. On the way downtown, i was surprised by the amount of mansions on the route down. I was expecting to see lots of poverty, which as i came to learn this certainly is not the case with Krakow. Soon enough it was my stop and i walked down and quickly found myself in the Oldtown Square. I had made a starting reservation earlier in ...

... on tight budgets). So our plan was to hang out at the polish klubs all night. Well, people don't actually start going out until about midnight. So we had this awkward chunk of time between dinner and midnight. We were lucky enough that the hostel agreed to keep our bags until our train left (they may have thought it left earlier than it did, and they may have thought that because we may have given them that impression!). So we tried to take naps in the park because it was ...