Cracking time in Krakow
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2007
1
22
31
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
Krakow,
Poland
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The next morning we hopped on the bus and headed out to Auschwitz. For those who do not know of Auschwitz it was here that the Nazis completed most of killings attributed to the Jewish holocaust as well as killing many political opposition as well as other prisoners. It is estimated that approx. 1.1 million people were killed here in the space of 3 years making it the largest cemetery in the world. There is really nothing positive you can say about this place except that it speaks the truth regarding the events that took place. I think the only thing I can say is to fully understand it you must witness it for yourself.
After the sombre mood of the morning trip a few of us decided to do a tour of the historical salt mine just out of Krakow. On the advice of our fearless leader Justin we decided to save a bit of money and do the Polishing speaking tour instead of the English tour (we were also told that we would get into the mine quicker). Well after the English tour set off in front of us about 8 of us headed down with the Polish tour. I will never understand anything our guide said and he probably won't understand what all these people were doing on his tour that didn't understand him but we had a great laugh hanging at the back of the tour making up our own commentary along the way. From a mining point of view the caverns that have been excavated underground a quite amazing with some areas having 15m high ceilings. Also underground was chapel where some of the workers had carved the painting the last supper (as well as other paintings) into the walls. After the tour we caught a bus back into Krakow and thought we might try and get in a game of football (a.k.a soccer). We found the ground quite easily but found we couldn't buy tickets to just that one game. We did notice a few dozen police officers in full riot gear waiting on the other side of the fence in the ground so it might have been a good idea not to go in. We headed back to the town square where we met up with a few more from our group and had dinner at a pizza restaurant on the square. After dinner we head back to the hotel and got cleaned up before heading back for a night on the town. To save time we caught a taxi back into the centre of town and walked around to find a bar to drink at. We ended up in this bar which was down a set of stairs and seemed to be in the basement of a building. The bar was made up of several rooms and we sat in the main room where the bar was. After sampling the local brew and having a contest to see who could crush the most walnuts (I don't know where the bowl of walnuts came from) I once again disgraced myself but getting up on the dance floor. I promise myself this will be the last time this happens on the trip as all I did was embarrass myself. Luckily the group I was with had drank enough that I don't think any of them would remember. At about 3am about 4 of us headed our the door and found the first taxi and headed back to the hotel.
After about 3 hours sleep I was up again, packed and dragging myself onto the bus ready for Budapest.
