An Emotional Trip, Krakow YAP

1.0 Introduction

Hi everyone, apologies for the late YAPs recently, life circumstances have made it difficult to keep up with everything (another word for being too lazy.) I will make sure that at least one YAP comes out every week. Anyway, as I said in the last YAP, I have been doing some traveling as of late and after we finally arrived home from an exhausting trip in Naples me and my partner boarded another flight to go to Poland. One thing I would say is that for anyone who decides to do something like this make sure you know what you're getting into as I will discuss this later. Anyway, lets get into it!

2.0 Arriving into Poland

As we arrived in Poland after a good nap on the flight we noticed that the airport we had flown into which was Katowice Airport was an hour away from Krakow itself, so after it took us an hour to get through passport control we had to try and find a transport service to get us into Krakow, this was mistake 1. Once we had got our transport service and were on the way, we then had some feelings off travel sickness and the bath curtains that the driver hung up were not helping Mistake 2. Then we finally arrived in Krakow, happy again we made our way to the hotel, as it was quite warm we were hoping to cool down once we got their. But one thing had slipped our mind and hence mistake 3 was made, our hotel room did not have aircon. With Poland having a heatwave that week it certainly did not help make us feel any better.

2.1 The Galeria Krakowska

Although the lack of conditioned air was deeply affecting us the hotel did offer one main benefit and that was its location. It was only a 5 minute walk from the train station (that we did not use), but what was great is that we were a 2 minute walk from a big shopping centre. This was truly what was needed really and where we spend quite a lot of time especially when it came to getting food, which by the way is mega cheap over in Poland. We ordered a KFC on the first day when we went, we had two buckets for one with refillable drinks which cost us around £4 in total. We had a Maccies from there which cost about £6 and then another KFC at the end where we went all out and it cost about £10, absolute bargain. This was not of course the only thing the shopping centre was good for but it's what we spent most of our time doing.

2.2 The Weiliczka Salt Mines

Now into the interesting stuff, so for our first trip we decided to visit the small town of Weiliczka. We booked tickets online to go and the visit the Salt Mine there, now personally I was not really expecting much from this. However I was absolutely besotted by the place, it was extraordinary the amount of work and craftmanship of some of the figures and places inside the mine. One of the most exemplary examples of this was the Church that they had built in there which was pretty amazing and completely made out of salt, in there was wall engravings of the birth and last moments of Jesus Christ. As you will see in some of the photos I have taken most if not all of the statues and models you can see are made out of salt from the mine. Going into the mine is not easy as it is an 800 step descend with another 300 steps added on, the deepest you reach is 125m under sea level which is pretty staggering when you think about it. Our tour guide was fantastic, speaking great English and also giving us some laughs on the way round, a truly fascinating experience.

Getting to the Salt Mine can be difficult from Krakow, we got an Uber from the centre.

2.4 Never again

Well in Poland we felt it was quite important that we visit Auschwitz, one of the famous concentration camps during the holocaust. This was a more planned trip and we had a minibus pick us up from our hotel, the driver was most helpful and provided us with a movie that she played on the drive. The movie showed a Soviet war photographers experience during the break out of Auschwitz Birkenau, it was a truly tragic series of events. Once we had arrived at Auschwitz 1 we had to brace ourselves for an emotional tour as our guide took us through the different rooms and explained with a heavy heart what the Nazis did not just to the Jewish but to the Polish people. The numbers were heart breaking, seeing the photos of those that were lost on the wall knowing that they went through such torture and torment without realising before they arrived was very upsetting. During the tour I did not take any photos simply because I could not bring myself to do it out of the respect for the people that had died. What shocked me the most was how people could stand there taking photos of the gas chambers and the shoes which I found was quite disrespectful.

Once we had finished the tour at Auschwitz 1 we then proceeded to Auschwitz Birkenau, which was the second and bigger camp. Not much remains of the camp since the Germans tried to burn it down to erase there crimes, but what is left tells the story of what went on there. Our tour guide explained how people were bought to the rail yard and lined up, where they went was dependant on there ability to work which gave the choice of slave labour or death by the gas chamber. He also showed us one of the houses for the workers which was meant to fit over 500 people in, 6 to a bed minimum. Truly awful conditions with people sleeping on wood planks or stone rock floor, one of the most tormenting rooms which was in Auschwitz 1 was the underground prison rooms which were not only small but dark as well. It was a very moving experience that I will never forget, our tour guide was excellent and in his words "I hope will never be repeated again".

2.5 Schindlers Factory

If you have watched Schindlers List you will already have a good idea of what to expect from Schindlers factory, included in our Auschwitz tour pack we got the opportunity to visit this museum with another tour guide. The museum shows how the war started and takes more of a look into what was happening in Poland once the Germans had taken control of Krakow. The rooms are designed as how they would have been represented during that time, one room in particular had Swastikas on the floor which represented the newly taken over square of Krakow which was not welcoming to polish people. It looked into how Polish Jews were splitted into a quarter which was called Ghetto and the living conditions. Of course it also spoke about Oscar Schindler a business man who in the end helped the Jews when he realised things weren't right. During the tour it talks about people who helped, there was a polish man who owned a pharmacy who played a huge role in helping the Jewish people.

One of the more sad parts of the factory were the diaries of young children that were written during this time, and of course we cannot forget the painted hero Stalin who was the "saviour" of Krakow who made an appearance. The one room that spoke out to me the most was the decisions room, at the end of the tour we went into a white room with pillars on the walls, on all these pillars was decisions that were made during these times, there were two books a white book and a black book and these two books distinguished the good decisions from the bad. We saw what labels the good, kindness and generosity from the bad, greed and power. Just like the other two the tour guide was great speaking good English and very informative, the tour was fantastic and if you can get it in a pack like we did I would highly recommend it.

3.0 Conclusion

So a mixture of emotions were felt during this trip anger, sadness, excitement, hungriness but above all gratefulness for such a moving experience. Everyday out told a different story and although we were only there for 3 nights we came away for a lot more than what we would have asked for. Krakow is a beautiful city and the Polish people are lovely, a small shout out to Jack who recommended a good restaurant to us called Pod Wawelem which was really nice, our waiter was kind and helpful. But I would definitely recommend the experience days we went on, I would make sure to always have a guide because they are very informative. In terms of a YAP rating well Krakow definitely hits the vibe and I would give it an 8.

Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed this weeks YAP, for photos just click the button below will have them uploaded post haste!

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Happy Travels!

Matthew :)

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