Poland is not on a lot of people’s must see list. It kind of why I wanted to go. I did have pretty low expectations given that it had been under the Russian thumb since the end of World War II and has only been freed up since 1990. I didn’t think there would be much to see but I needed to check off a city in Poland. I chose Krakow over Warsaw on this trip because it was a shorter bus ride.
As much as I am getting a bit tired of old towns, I have learned that I prefer them to newer cities or those rebuilt to look old. After I decided on Krakow, I learned that Warsaw was pretty much leveled during the war and was all pretty new. So good for me.
And Krakow steps up on the old town front. It has the typical touristy town center loaded with vendors selling tourist crap and tourists that like buying tourist crap. There is also a pretty strong Jazz music scene going on. And some pretty cool public art installations. I was there as a film festival was just winding up. I stopped in at one of the free outdoor film festival showings but it was cold and I am too lazy to read subtitles for very long. I did find a cheap beer hall right off the plaza after I walked by so that’s good.
Krakow seems to be the latest low price airline destination for the English. It was the first place in a while that I actually understood a lot of what people were saying. At least, I could understand it if alcohol wasn’t so cheap and so well appreciated by the English. Mostly it was just slurring after 6pm.
I did take a day and go to Auschwitz via a 1.5 hour bus ride. I wasn’t sure what to expect since the day I spent at the killing fields in Cambodia was so emotionally draining. I am not sure why but, this was not as bad. Cambodia has the bones of the dead on display in a tower and photos of the victims from their arrest. Many were young and should have had a long life ahead of them. Some were smiling and unaware of what was about to come. The torture chambers were the same as the last day they were used.
Maybe I have heard about the Holocaust for most of my life and seen all the pictures so the shock factor wasn’t there. It was still a long depressing day but I wasn’t as viscerally affected by the visit. I still cant recommend enough a visit to the camps (there are 2 of them). The curators have put a lot of time and effort into explaining how each European country was impacted by the final solution.
From my short stay in Poland (Krakow and a night in Lviv), I would definitely like to go back some day. I think it would be easy to fill up a week or two length stay.