From Olomouc we decided to be brave (and cheap) and get a bus to the Czech/Polish border town and then walk across before catching a bus to Krakow. It was slightly stressful as we had incorrect info but some lovely local girls, who couldn’t speak English, went out of their way and walked us to the bus station.
Krakow was gorgeous – it had all the facilities you needed from a city but the main town was all lovely, cobbled and old fashioned. We were there at Easter and therefore most shops closed from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday morning – bit of a shame as we missed out on the highly recommended Grandma’s restaurant. There was a lovely Easter market on where we tried some traditional food, sausage etc and got me my easter treats.
We went to Auschwitz & Birkenhau on Saturday which was obviously awful but such an important thing to see. Initially we both weren’t as affected as we had been when visiting Dachau Camp in Munich last year but once you see the size of Birkenhau and hear the stats and at Auschwitz see the glass paned rooms filled high with human hair, thousands of pairs of glasses, suitcases, hairbrushes and even prosthetic limbs you really start to feel the magnitude of how many people went through the camps and the awful truth of it all.
We did a half day trip to the Salt Mines, you go 135 metres underground and it’s really big – you actually only see 1% of the entire mine which is mindblowing how huge it must me! There’s a whole lot of sculptures and even a chapel all carved/sculpted out of the salts, most of which were created by miners themselves. I wouldn’t recommend going though – I’ve heard better reviews from salt mines in different countries, plus it was pricey!
We met some fun Aussies and Brits at the hostel and went out with them to dinner one night and indulged in some polish vodka over card games the next…PHOTOS TO COME!
Krakow was gorgeous – it had all the facilities you needed from a city but the main town was all lovely, cobbled and old fashioned. We were there at Easter and therefore most shops closed from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday morning – bit of a shame as we missed out on the highly recommended Grandma’s restaurant. There was a lovely Easter market on where we tried some traditional food, sausage etc and got me my easter treats.
We went to Auschwitz & Birkenhau on Saturday which was obviously awful but such an important thing to see. Initially we both weren’t as affected as we had been when visiting Dachau Camp in Munich last year but once you see the size of Birkenhau and hear the stats and at Auschwitz see the glass paned rooms filled high with human hair, thousands of pairs of glasses, suitcases, hairbrushes and even prosthetic limbs you really start to feel the magnitude of how many people went through the camps and the awful truth of it all.
We did a half day trip to the Salt Mines, you go 135 metres underground and it’s really big – you actually only see 1% of the entire mine which is mindblowing how huge it must me! There’s a whole lot of sculptures and even a chapel all carved/sculpted out of the salts, most of which were created by miners themselves. I wouldn’t recommend going though – I’ve heard better reviews from salt mines in different countries, plus it was pricey!
We met some fun Aussies and Brits at the hostel and went out with them to dinner one night and indulged in some polish vodka over card games the next…PHOTOS TO COME!
