Short Break in Kraków

May/June 2006

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Short break to Kraków, Poland 31^st May - 3^rd June 2006. The weather was cold and wet while we were there. We stayed in the Stare Miasto (Old Town), which is quite amazing. Most of the old town is surrounded by a park, which is the moat which has been filled in. The town was lucky during the second world war, and wasn't badly damaged at all. Consequently most of the medieval parts are still intact. It has a huge market square (Rynek Glówny) which contains the Cloth Hall. A few hundred metres away is Wawel Castle, where the Polish kings lived and all but about four are buried. Then immediately by that is Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter which was decimated by the Germans.

We spent a day wandering around the old town on the first day. The second day, we took a trip to Auschwitch and Birkenau Concentration camps. They look innocuous, but are places of pure evil. There were rooms full of womens hair and piles of brushes, glasses etc, for re-use. The gas chambers and crematoria have been destroyed, but the original crematorium in Auschwitz is still intact.

The weather may have been cold and at times (very) wet, but we had a good time and the prices were remarkably low, for most things. We ate quite well in the evenings and I still managed to bring some money home!