Big Adventures, Little World

Our last full day in Poland we planned on going to the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp/Museum that was in operation by the Nazis before and during World War II. We were heading off to the bus station when we were approached by someone offering to take us there, wait there with us, take us to the second Auschwitz site, and then bring us back again. Now it seems kind of dodgy, and the whole time Kate was wondering if she was going to get murdered, but it was all fine and worked out to be a good deal for us. Having previously visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria I had an idea of what to expect, but Auschwitz is so very different. The sheer size of it and the ground that it covered was enormous. It was connected to the railway system so they could bring the prisoners in by trains straight into the camp. From the entrance to the end of the train track was about a kilometre, and because of the fog we could barely see down to the end of the tracks. This made for an eerie experience, even more so by the time we were leaving when the fog had got lower and thicker, and we could only see at most a couple of hundred metres in front of us. We didn’t cover the entire grounds even though we spent a good 4 hours there. It really is something that needs to be experienced yourself and to spend quite a bit of time there to take it all in and understand what happened during these times. If for no other reason so that as many people as possible know so that something like this is never allowed to happen again.

The rest of our stay was quite uneventful. We went out for dinner again after our visit to Auschwitz, where we all had Zur and pierogi where afterwards we headed back to the hotel and had a few drinks and got most of our packing done to leave early the next morning. Elese and I were up early to get to Krakow airport, while the others had to catch the train back to Warsaw and fly from there later in the afternoon. It was good leaving early in the morning as it meant we made it back to London, and therefore back home at a normal hour during the day where we pretty much just lay down, exhausted, with nothing but sleep on our minds.

We all met at the train station nice and early, but luckily for me and Elese we weren’t staying to far from the station so we didn’t have to get up quite as early. Our train ride was pretty much the same as when we came to Warsaw, except it was a different train layout with more room, less people, and more people we knew to talk to, but I still spent most of it trying to sleep. Once we had arrived back in Krakow, we stopped for some food, before going to find our apartment where we were staying. After that we just relaxed until a bit later in the afternoon when we decided to go visit The Wieliczka Salt Mine in the town of Wieliczka outside of Krakow. The salt mine was one of the world’s oldest operating mines until 2007 when it completely stopped all mining. We had a guided tour which took us down throughout the mines to a maximum depth of 130 metres underground. The ground we covered in the tour was only a small amount, about 3.5kms, of the total mines though, which go down to a depth of 327 metres and is over 300km long. Throughout the mines there are a number of statues and sculptures that were carved from rock salt by the miners, including saints, Pope John Paul II, dwarf miners, and sculptures of famous paintings including ‘The Last Supper’. In addition to this there is a large fully functional chapel that is carved from rock salt where people still come and pray today and have weddings held there. It is really quite incredible being in huge open areas over 100 metres underground. There’s also an underground lake, reception rooms that can be booked for functions, and a restaurant. Before leaving we stopped for a beer 130 metres underground, because really, when else would you get a chance to do that! It was time to leave, so we piled into the tiny elevators to take us back to the surface. With 9 people squished in to such a small place, it’s a good thing it only takes about 30 seconds to get back to the surface.

We got back to Krakow and found a small restaurant to eat at and thought it was time to order some traditional Polish food, especially now we had Lucas to help us order and tell what everything was. We started with some Polish soup and some potato pancakes. We had a couple of different kinds of soup including a tomato soup, as well a traditional Polish soup called Zur (or Zurek) which was delicious. It has Polish sausage and egg as well as some vegetables and sour rye and often served in a Polish bread roll hollowed out. We also had some pierogi which are Polish dumpling and have different kind of filling. We had some with meat filling and they were extremely tasty as well. Our whole meal was great, and we topped it off with some Polish beer, and then when we came to pay the bill, it worked out to be about £8 each, which was ridiculous considering how much we had eaten and how full we all were.

We’d booked a train to Warsaw for the afternoon, so we spent the morning on a tour of Krakow with a local guide who liked to make up stories and legends about some of the building and places which seemed a bit strange to us as we never knew if we should believe him or not. Poland has been involved in many wars and therefore have had defences which some are still standing today, including some of the city walls from the Medieval ages, as well as The Barbican which was once joined to the city walls and served as a checkpoint for all who entered the city, and also as provided as a major defensive structure during wars. It is one of only three barbicans still standing in Europe today, which considering it was built in 1498 is a testament to its strength and effectiveness. Along the way we also stopped at a number of places including the main market square, Rynek Główny. This is home to the Sukiennice, or cloth hall as it is more commonly known which is full of stalls selling all kinds of goods. There is also a number of stalls outside around the square, and a number of shops and restaurants surrounding it as well. Along with this, the square is also home to the Town Hall Tower, Church of St. Wojciech (St. Adalbert’s), Adam Mickiewicz Monument, St. Mary’s Basilica and “Eros Bound” a sculpture of a man’s lying head by Igor Mitoraj. We stopped at a few more places along the way before making up way up to the Wawel Cathederal and Wawel Castle. On the way up to the castle we stopped at Tadeusz Kościuszko Monument, which is who Mount Kościuszko in Australia is named after. However, as we found out, we pronounce it completely wrong, and our guide proceeded to make all the Australians in the group pronounce it correctly before we moved on. It is actually pronounced ‘ko-chew-sko’. There wasn’t much to the castle but one interesting fact was that when building it they ran out of room at the edge of the hill and therefore made just a wall there, rather than actual rooms attached to the castle.

We got on our train and found some seat and unfortunately it was very similar to the train compartments we were in when we had travelled to Munich, except there were 8 people per compartment. At least it was only a 3 hour journey though, not 11, and at least we didn’t end up like some of the passengers, who had to just line the aisles and sit wherever they could because all the seats filled up. The train ride was completely uneventful, where I mainly just slept and played Nintendo DS and Elese did the same, but we made it to Warsaw and went off to find our Hotel. Other than that we didn’t do too much that night. We had planned on going to meet Kate, Lucas & John but by the time they eventually got where they were going there wasn’t much point so we crashed out and went to sleep.

The next day we didn’t really get up to much either, as it was mid afternoon before Kate, Lucas and John were up and functioning. So we met them as the sun went down (which was about 4:00PM by the way) and we went to the Palace of Culture and Science which is the tallest building in Poland. We went up to the top and there were some amazing views from up there with all the lights of the city shining bright. John and Lucas spent some time getting all their photos right, but it was cold and raining, and being at that height when the rain came in, it hurt. They were closing soon as well so we made our way back down and went to eat before we would all meet up again later that night.

Later that night we all met up again and we went out to night club. Firstly we went to the bar to order some drinks. It sure does help having a Polish person with you, that’s for sure. We ordered a bottle of vodka and some small bottles of juice to mix it with which cost about £10. A bottle! In a club. For 10 quid! Everything was so cheap in Poland. It was crazy. We spent the night with a few drinks and a bit of dancing but by about 2:00PM we headed back to the hotel for another early start, this time going back to Krakow by train.

We had never really planned on going to Poland at all, but the option was there for a while. Kate had planned on going there with Lucas and John, and had asked me a number of times if I had wanted to come too, but I didn’t really thing I had the money to do. It wasn’t until one night Kate and I were working on the roof top bar together with not much to do where we got to talking about going to Poland and once again she asked if Elese and I wanted to come. I’d said no once again, but for something to do and pass the time, we looked up flights on my phone to see what was available. Last time I had looked, it was going to cost about £300 pounds for the both of us, just for flights, which was too much. Though this time, RyanAir were having a sale as they do every few days it seems, and we found return flights for the both of us for less than £120. I went home to Elese and asked if she wanted to go to Poland, and then we booked the tickets.

It was a day after the others that we left, and we flew into Krakow whereas they flew into Warsaw to catch up with some of Lucas’ friends. So after going straight into the city from work the night before, (struggling as well because of the damn Tube strikes that seem to be happening once a month now), then catching a bus, we spent the next few hours waiting at the airport before we were able to board our flight.

When we touched down in Krakow, we walked off the plane and straight onto a bus, which once everyone was on, took us about 25 metres to the terminal. I don’t know why they didn’t just have us walk there, it would have been quicker, and then everyone would have made it through quicker as well. All in the name of safety I guess though. Once we had cleared customs it was an apparent 200 metre walk (which was more like 800 metres) to catch a train into central Krakow and then onto our hotel.

We were staying at the Holiday Inn, a 5 star hotel which we had booked as a Top Secret hotel on www.lastminute.com and it was extremely cheap. We had also booked a 5 star hotel for our 2nights in Warsaw as well, because we could. That’s one of the things that becomes apparent about Poland very quickly is how cheap everything is. The train tickets, the hotels, the clothes, but most of all the food! Our first day we spent having a bit of a sleep in the hotel, seeing as we hadn’t slept the night before, then later that night we headed out to find something to eat and for a bit of a look around. We ended up finding a place which was a bit Western themed but had some decent food on the menu and had Polish options as well. We didn’t go for these this time as we thought we would wait until we were with Lucas and he could tell us what was good. We had some good food and some Polish beer to go with it, and the beer was delicious. Probably some of the best beer I have had. When we went to pay, the bill only worked out to about £10 each, including drinks! We were always amazed at how cheap it was, but not only that, but how good the food was for the price you pay!

We are 9 days into Movember now and I have returned from Poland so it was about time I actually groomed my beard and turned it into the beloved ‘mo. So here it is for you all to enjoy!

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