We were impressed with Poland from the moment we got out the train at Krakow. This city is really pretty (not in the mind blowing beautiful way of Prague), but really nice all the same. We arrived at our hostel at about 8am and they were good enough to let us store our bags and told us to help ourselves to breakfast and much needed coffee - so appreciated!
We set out to explore the old town, starting at the Barbican (the old town wall) and checking out Europe's biggest square, which really is quite massive. The weather was insanely cold, like I actually got wind burn on my legs through my jeans! But by lunch time it had warmed up and was actually quite a balmy day. After checking into our room (which is actually a separate apartment with three rooms, it's own kitchen etc) we did some very neccessary washing before heading back out to see Wawel castle. We'd lost a bit of our travelling mojo though and were feeling exhausted by this stage (guess two weeks of solid walking caught up with us!) so we took it easy and after a mission to find a salad for dinner (who'd have thunk it'd be so hard!) we were asleep by 9pm - yep, we're living it up!
Today we made our way to Aushwitz, which was definitely good to see, but pretty harrowing. I've always felt disbelief that something so barbaric as the holocaust could happen, and while seeing this horrible camps made it more real, it still didn't help me understand why or how something so incredibly horrible had to happen. We took a tour around the two camps - Aushwitz and Birkenau and our guide was really good and very knowledgeable.
On the way back we caught a slower bus so saw a lot of little towns - including a guy riding a horse drawn cart down the road, and old ladies with those colourful headscarves you associate with Poland. The driving around here is a little scary though - some very dodgy overtaking, not to mention we can't figure out pedestrian crossing and never know if cars are going to stop for us to cross or not!
We have one more day in Krakow tomorrow, then it's off to Hungary on another overnight train - hopefully we'll be used to the train rythm and actually sleep this time!
xxx
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment