Almost A World Tour!

Thank the lord for my weak bladder..! Words I never thought I'd hear myself say out load but after sleeping through an alarm I forgot to set it was an early morning whizz-call which made me realise I had 15 mins to get my shit together and get to the airport for the 07:35 to Krakow.

The lady running the hostel was super-helpful and after a thorough induction of the property & procedures she sent me off with boundless maps, brochures & leaflet to plan my next three days. My first stop was Wawel Castle & Cathedral which was the seat of the kings for over 500 years from the early days of the Polish state. Situated at the top of Wawel Hill wandering the grounds themselves offer generous panoramic views of the river Wista and Krakow down below. Without banging on for too long about some old buildings I'll just leave it by saying they definitely make my top 5 favourite medieval / Renaissance architectural marvels.

Wawel Castle

That evening it was back down to the banks of the river Wista as I'd been informed on good authority (super-helpful hostel lady - who else..?) that there was sort of a celebration planned - part of the annual Jewish Cultural Festival which runs each year from late June to early July.

Glasto eat your heart out...! It appeared the whole of Poland had turned up to join the festivities, I managed to find myself a little spot on one of the bridges over the river. The entertainment would be best described as Eurovision on crack. It was the very crčme de la crčme of tragic 80's electro-pop with multiple artistes taking the stage to showcase varying degree's of natural talent. But the crowd loved it and I must admit the atmosphere was kind of infectious so it wasn't long until I was bopping along with the best of them. The show closed to a pretty impressive firework display and then it was time for me to negotiate the streets of Krakow back to my bed.

Day two saw me saunter through the Old Town and surrounding streets taking in the various historical sights. I must admit I was finding Krakow to be exceptionally easy on the eye and it seems I was in good company - UNESCO added the centre of Krakow to its first world heritage list - good call! In the afternoon I made it down to Kazimierz, the Jewish district. In WWII the jewish people of Poland were slaughtered by the Nazi's and along with them all evidence of a strong Jewish community. Miraculously however all seven synagogues survived and I also saw a nice old lady feeding pigeons from her window.

Old Town square

Kazimierz

Final day in Krakow and not to end it all doom and gloom I had to take a trip to the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial & Museum. Started in 1940 as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners in 1942, it became the centre of extermination of European Jews. Between 1940-1945 the Nazi's killed 1.5 million people there, predominately Jews as well as Poles, Gypsies and Russian POW's. I felt it was important to visit something which had played such a significant role in Polish history. The whole experience was pretty sickening, similar to the trip I made in Phemon Penh Cambodia to the S-21 Jail and the Killing Fields, an all to bitter and harsh reminder of how exactly how cruel human nature can be.

Next Stop - Budapest