Auschwitz and Birkenau museum

The second world war concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau are a short day trip from Krakow. These days Auschwitz functions as a museum detailing the history of the camps. There are some harrowing displays which connect with people at a individual level conveying both the scale and family impact of the atrocities. Birkenau is 3kms away and lies virtually untouched but mostly in ruins.
:: Shoes plundered from victims ::

For a couple of kilometers around all that can be seen are brick chimney stacks of hundreds of old wooden barracks. Originally the primitive barracks were designed to stable 52 horses, up to 400 people were housed in overcrowded three tier bunks and enduring freezing temperatures in the winter. You can only but imagine the hopelessness of it all. The sheer industrial level of processing people through the camp is very evident. Only 25% of people who arrived to Auschwitz and Birkenau survived the selection process and lived in the camps.

:: Two to a bunk ::

We spent 5 hours in Auschwitz and Birkenau and still felt constricted by time. Birkenau is vast so there is an incredible amount of distance to cover. Auschwitz has hundreds of displays to get around so if anyone is going there make sure to give yourself plenty of time. :: Work will make you free ::

As usual the day involved some kind of bureaucracy and fist shaking. The bus station had a tourist special sign up in English offering a return ticket for Auschwitz, the deal was 20 pln return. After a bit of digging I found out a single trip each way was 7pln ... the mind boggles! Our bus back to Krakow turned out to be a far cry from the luxury coach out. Our local bus stopped at every one horse town and we made a unscheduled stop en route when the passengers from the hour before bus flagged us down after they had encountered mechanical difficulties. It all made for a sardine like experience back to Krakow.




:: To give you an idea of the unbelievable scale, enlarge this picture and you can see the guard tower entrance from above in the distance ::

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The Craic on Krakow.....

Krakow is a whole load of everything rolled up into one compact city which is good news for worn out walking feet. We really enjoyed hanging out there for a few days... lots of eating pierogi, zapiekankas and kebabs. We were introduced to zapiekankas the first night when we rolled into the city late and went in search of something to eat. In the Jewish quarter we found a square whose sides were lined with bars and in the centre of the square was a series of window hatches selling cheap food of the "lining the stomach" variety. Zapiekankas .. toasted french bread rolls with pizza topping and a trade mark squiggle of ketchup replaces the ice-cream phenomena that we've seen elsewhere. It's worth saying that we've got to the stage where we are dying for a spicy Chinese. There's been a couple of instances where we've loitered outside the window of a Chinese restaurant peering in to see if there are real Chinese cooking the food. I'm pretty sure the irony will come back to bite us in a couple of months when we are in the middle of china crying out for a pizza!



Krakow's old walled town houses the 2nd largest square in the world (or so it claims) and is overlooked by a castle and cathedral. The old town is magnificently restored and has achieved a lovely balance of having all the chain shops most European capitals have without ruining the old feel and charm of the city. A tasteful golden arches is always a welcome sign.... We spent a couple of days checking out the old town's small streets, taking in the views from the castle, visiting the little markets and generally soaking up the Krakow laid back atmosphere.



After four nights in one place the Krakow dorm room (with the creakiest beds in the world) began to feel like a home. We'd seen people come and go in all of the other beds in the room and I fear we started to get territorial over who "owned" the table and how much space everyone else was entitled to on "our" clothes horse. I caught myself straightening up the beds and picking stray bits of paper from from floor. A sure sign that it was time to move!


So taking stock so far - we're a month on the road and still enjoying it. Despite some long journeys we haven't reached for the iPods or books just yet which has surprised us both. Our approach was to ease ourselves into the travelling rather than burning out too much at the start. We seem to be almost too good at the taking it easy ...excluding the compulsory frantic last minute sprints for trains! Over the last few stops there are less and less people on holidays and more people doing longer trips like ourselves so we're picking up lots of tips for future destinations. Hostels full of long haul travellers tend to very social places so there are plenty of laughs, stories and good times along the way.

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It hasn't rained in two days......

Our number one purchase since the last blog was an umbrella and it sure has seen a lot of use. We've had to learn how to say "thank you" in three different languages and our pockets are filled with worthless coins from the last country.


After some hasty research at the last minute we realised that accommodation in Bratislava was expensive and the standards left a lot to be desired. On a tip off from one website we made our way to Juraj's Hostel ... there were warnings that it was a "different" place. Juraj turned out to be an eccentric who opened the hostel three years ago and is "still renovating". You got the feeling every project was started and stopped at 90% completion. Juraj seemed to run the place singlehandedly working unbelievable hours to keep everyone happy. When we arrived I asked about getting sheets and pillowcases (it was raining and everything about the hostel seemed at sixes and sevens so getting dry sheets was a priority) Juraj looked at me and said "yes .. and you'll need towels too.... later later ... who wants a lift into town?". At 10:30pm that night Juraj came by with sheets etc. by that stage he'd driven half the hostel around and was taking everyones laundry to do overnight.

Interestingly this is the first hostel we've taken upon ourselves to review for hotelz.com. We came upon a nice little earner where you can review and photograph places and get paid for it. Incidentally the ads on the top of the blog are our other little earner. "A click a day keeps M and D away!"

Bratislava is a beautiful little city, well worth a weekend hop if you live that side of the world. We don't have a lonely planet for Eastern Europe, the plan was to get by, do the leg work and depend on Marcus's excellent sense of direction to guide us around. This has worked pretty well so far but every now and again we are missing little snippets of information. We suspect there's a party on somewhere .. and there usually is .. it just takes on a while to find it. Our first two hours in Bratislava were spend wandering deserted streets and checking out the only shop open which happened to be Tescos, needless to say Marcus was pleased! No sooner had we exited Tesco and rounded the next corner we came across the last thing you'd expect to see on a Sunday afternoon in Bratislava - the Slovakian beach volleyball finals complete with, real sand, grandstand, dancing girls and hospitality tent in the middle of a big square. On a recommendation from Juraj we headed out of the touristy area to the 1.Slovak pub for some real Slovakian beer and food. All good value .. made all the better sitting in the covered beer area with the rain hitting tarpaulin.


















:: Bratislavas Beach ..... ::


In an effort to outsmart the high euro prices of Austria we decided to base ourselves in Bratislava for a couple of days and take a day trip into Vienna. The two cities are only about an hour away from each other. On the morning of our departure from the hostel in Bratislava the skies were grey but looking promising. Please note we had checked the forecast and it had advised of widespread rain. We still look back and wonder how two people with the full spectrum of outdoor gear could have departed in sandals that day leaving quick dry pants and waterproof shoes behind safely locked up in the rucksacks. Marcus was, and still is determined not to take his raincoat out until we get to some latitude far north of here or until winter arrives whichever comes first. Anyhow we arrived in Vienna at 11am and the rain was so bad that we contemplated getting the 12:15pm train back. Half an hour later and thoroughly drenched we had stretched the budget to purchase a stylish over the shoulder umbrella for 2.50 euros. We emerged from an underground station into St.Stephans Platz looking for a picturesque place to make our picnic lunch only to take the escalator back down and sit like bums on the floor of the underground eating our rolls. Following lunch we did a whirlwind expedition around the fantastic buildings dodging puddles and bracing ourselves against the wind. We managed to find a nice tram that ran around most of the sights and took shelter in that for a while - squinting out fogged up windows. At 5pm we called it a day and headed for the train back to Bratislava. To round of a miserable day the train took us to a little local station the other side of Bratislava leaving us with a sizeable trudge home. Opening the door of our hostel looking forward to hopping into our nice bed we met Juraj who was waiting to tell us that we had to move rooms. Our new room had a guest already installed and there was an inhumane stink in the room. Thankfully Juraj offered us a bed in an open common/ clothes drying area and gave us a beer to sweeten us up. Turned out to be a great alternative!



We're on our fourth night in Krakow now and heading for Vilnius on the early morning train. There's been so much to do here that we haven't had enough time to get it all posted so we'll catch soon.





:: Vienna in sandals.....::

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