Krakow Poland

This past week a friend and I visited Krakow Poland. On our way there we discovered some difficulties. The lack of English spoken makes buying train tickets and asking for directions seem next to impossible. Once we arrived in Krakow we couldn't find our hostel, and ended up walking up and down the street walking past it for a half hour.

Old Town Square

Caitlin at Brunch

 

On our first day in Krakow we explored the city centre in the morning, and had brunch in the square. Afterwards we left the city for a tour of Auschwitz, a concentration camp from the Holocaust. The tour was interesting and insightful, and worth visiting.

On our second day in Poland we took a bus to Zakopane, a mountainous town about 2.5 hours away. We were planning on taking a tour but were told at the hostel that it would be much cheaper to go on our own. Little did we know how confusing it would be to find the cable car at the mountains once we arrived. After finding a place for lunch we starting walking in the general direction of the mountains. After about an hour of walking in the rain we finally found the cable car only to find out it had closed 5 minutes before! At least we saw the mountains from a distance :)

The Mountains in Zakopane

Lunch in Zakopane

On the last day in Krakow we took a tour of the Wieliczka salt mines, a popular tourist attraction a half hour from Krakow (1.2 million people visit it per year) We were told we were very lucky to be there in the off season. In the tourist season you may have to wait up to 5 hours to get in and 3 hours to get back out!  The mines had many sculptures made out of salt, and the walls were covered in salt. Our tour guide was really interesting, and knew a lot about the mines, probably due to the fact that he had given 4000 tours. Later that night I had my third serving of perogies since coming to Poland. (The most amazing food Poland can offer!)

In the Salt mines

Chandelier in the Mines

Salt lake in the Mines

We spent our last night in Warsaw, but due to a long train trip we didn't get to see much of the city. We didn't have much motivation to see it though since everyone we'd talked to told us it wasn't a nice city. After a long morning of travel on Wednesday (and almost missing our flight) we made it home to the Netherlands!

Our hostel in Krakow