Krakow & Auschwitz, Poland, 28-29 Dec 09

In the morning we had a stroll around the Krakow castle. It's a great castle up on the hill with views over the city. The cathedral was breathtaking inside and definitely the best part of the castle.

It was absolutely freezing in Krakow and we really hadn't wrapped up enough so we headed back to the hostel but Nick decided he needed another rest day so i headed out again solo.

I took in the market square and the church there. The centre hall was all scaffolded up and the christmas markets were just shutting down so it was all quite quiet but it was really nice just walking around the streets. Krakow isn't as pretty as Prague but I still enjoyed it.

I walked the green belt, a park pathway surrounding the city and had a walk through the jewish quarter. Quite a fascinating town.

On the next day we left Krakow and drove to Auschwitz in Oschweicim. We only just made it in time for a guided tour which I'm so glad we did because it was fascinating.

We spent 2 hours walking through Auschwitz and learning its history and the conditions in which people had to live there. We saw many photos and belongings of people and I learnt a lot.

The prison cells were horrible, they had standing cells where 3-4 men were jammed into a tiny space with no windows and a starvation cell. There was also the death wall behind the prison block where prisoners died by shooting squad. At Auschwitz we were also taken to see one of the only remaining gas chambers. It was awful to think what happened in there.

I didn't realise that there are two very distinct camps. Auschwitz and then Aushwitz-Berkenau a few kms away.

The pictures most people are familiar with are mainly from the second except for the famous "Arbeit macht frei" sign which is at the first camp. The second camp was built during the war and is where they kept most of the Jews. The first camp was mainly for prisoners of war such as Soviet prisoners, political prisoners and medical experimentation.

A bus took us to Auschwitz-Berkenau. The entrance is very familiar with the railway track leading directly into the camp so they could easily unload thousands of people within the camp walls. It was a huge complex, much bigger than I expected but a lot of it had been destroyed when the Germans were ordered to evacuate the camp. They burnt and demolished anything they could.

The wooden barracks where the men lived were horse stables transported from other regions, the women's barracks were on the other side and made of concrete. The conditions are hard to imagine. We saw the ruins of the gas chambers where millions were executed. It was definitely a sobering experience. I am really glad we had the opportunity to visit.

We drove all the way back to Prague in the afternoon and the trip was a lot quicker than expected so we got the Merc dropped off and found our new hostel, a cosy place in a quieter area of Prague. It had a cellar bar which was the best place to chill for the night and I finally tried Becherovka, a Czech spirit which I think is a bit of a cross between anaseid and cinnamon. Took a bit of getting used to.