So I’ve just returned from Poland.  Yes, Poland.  I don’t think I thought about touring Poland when I dreamt of Europe when I was younger; after this trip, I don’t know why.  Poland is incredible.

I’ll try not to run off course as I slip everything I did in Poland in less than 72 hours, so here it goes. 

My trip to Poland is a story of seconds.  We made trains, trams, buses, museums, shops, and exhibits by literally seconds.  Fortunately, we were able to do absolutely everything we had hoped to do in Poland, but we were always cutting it close. 

We left class on Friday and ran to the tram station in Prague in order to catch a ride to the train station.  As the doors were closing, literally (one of the five of us actually got caught in the door) we got on the tram.  Now, this isn’t all that exciting considering the rides come every four minutes at that time of day, but that foreshadowed the rest of the trip.  There were seven of us going to Krakow together, but other study abroad students we knew were on the train as well.  From Prague to Krakow is not the easiest route because there are no direct trains.  In fact, it took two transfers and three trains to reach Poland.   

The move from the first to the second train was flawless, but border control on the second train slowed us up 28 minutes and our lay-over was only set for 29 minutes.  Needless to say, in broken English, the conductor warned our cabin that we’d have to “move very quickly” in order to reach Krakow when we wanted.  So we lined up at the door as the train readied for its second stop and darted to the next train, about 15 of us together, getting on the train as it pulled away no more than 3 seconds later.   

When we arrived in Poland, my first thoughts were how much the city looked like the Eastern Europe I had imagined.  Sure Poland is a developed EU-member country and Krakow is home to dozens of top businesses, a great university, and is a modernized city, but it still possessed the cold, old, war-destroyed, dark feeling of the storied eastern countries.  None of the buildings had any color to them as they do in Prague and in other areas of central Europe.  All of them were gray, hidden behind inches of dirt and pollution.  The city has not modernized in architecture much since the end of WWII, but from that comes its great charm and character.   

We walked from the train to the hostel, threw our bags down and headed out to grab some dinner.  Not knowing too much about Polish food, we quickly came to the conclusion that although it has its small differences and unique dishes, much of the food was similar to Budapest, Vienna, and Prague.   

Part of the reason to visit Krakow, for us and so many other millions of travelers (something like 4+ million annually), is to see Auschwitz, the largest and most horrific concentration camp of the Nazi regime.  We made plans at dinner to head to Auschwitz at 7:10 a.m., and so our group quickly shrunk from 9 to 4. 

After some dinner, a little bar, and a very early night, we were asleep for only a few hours before the 6 a.m. wake up.  Again, we planned out about 40 minutes to get to the train and bus station and figure out the place.  However, when we got there, it being Saturday made the place a little barren and made for no English speaking people on staff or in the station.  Thankfully, at about 7:08 a.m. an English-speaking French expat directed us toward the bus an elevator ride down and we boarded the bus with no more than 30 seconds to spare.   

Auschwitz opens at 8 a.m., but the first bus from Krakow doesn’t get in until about 8:30 a.m., so when our small group arrived, we literally opened the camp.  To be at Auschwitz is one of the eeriest feelings in itself, but to be at Auschwitz I (one), a huge 100 acre camp (and this is the smaller of the two camps) with only three others is very eerier.  We agreed that we wouldn’t walk around with one another, so at times there was no one to be seen.  No tour guides, security, or visitors, I walked Auschwitz for nearly 90 minutes without seeing a single person.   

Auschwitz I (one) survived the war very much in tact and many of the remaining barracks and facilities are now miniature museums within the larger complex.  Some barracks show the daily life of prisoners, others the transportation and relocation of Jews, the sick ways in which doctors used Jews and others in experiments, and the ways in which prisoners were killed.  Other barracks are museums dedicated to victims of specific countries, like Denmark, Italy, Poland, and other European nations.  You can just freely walk around, in and out of each building, and it would probably take 3 or 4 full days to really stop and look at each picture and read each paragraph and caption.  The museum is direct and real; no image is too horrid to show, as the events of the Holocaust are real and so the pictures are to live on as memories of this time.     

As we finished at Auschwitz I, near 11 a.m., four bus loads of tourist groups flooded the camp.  The presence of these large groups, roaming together like herds was very odd.  Of course it is a historical museum, a ‘tourist’ attraction of sorts (although by no means do I imply attraction, simply that it draws millions of tourists and is the largest museum and most frequented in Poland and all of Eastern Europe by hundreds of thousands of visitors), but it was very odd to have large tours cramming the area.   

We took a taxi the 3 kilometers to Auschwitz II, the second and larger of the two Auschwitz camps that was built later in the war and made specifically for killing Poles and Jews, not for labor at all.  In fact, nearly 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz in less than two years.  Of that 1.5 million, 70% were killed immediately as they got off the train, as they were sent to the gas chamber upon arrival.  Other numbers that were just astonishing was that before the war, there were 3.5 million Jews in Poland, today just 6,000, less than 0.2% of the original population.   

Auschwitz II is the more famous of the two camps.  It is the camp of so many photographs that show 700 acres of flat land covered with the remains of over 1000 buildings.  Most of them were destroyed by the Nazis at the end of the war to cover their crimes, but many survived, along with some of the ruins of all four gas chambers and mass crematoriums. 

3 of the barracks are open to the public, and again, for nearly an hour, the four of us were the only visitors, and it was quite scary and extremely emotional.  Crammed into a little more than 1000 square feet of space were up to 700, 800, or even 1000 prisoners.  The images of Schindler’s List and pictures in the history books do not lie.   

Amazingly, there are no tour guides or security at Auschwitz, and visitors are encouraged to get up, get next to and touch, smell, see, and live the barracks and the camp.  Only a few arrows point the way around the 700 acres, but for the most part, we just slowly roamed.  There were moments when I remember just continually thinking how incredible the sights were.  “Holy shit” came out my mouth over and over as I thought about the monstrosity of Hitler and the Nazis just viciously killing millions of people, entire villages, families, generations, countries for no reason.  Seeing the gas chambers and the ponds still full of ashes was just awful and shocking.  The shock is continuous and painful.   

We walked around the camp for another three hours before heading back to Krakow.  We thought we had the bus schedule figured out pretty well, but we were wrong.  The buses weren’t running as planned for whatever reason that day, so we stood in a ‘bus line’ on the side of the road simply because that was what a few locals were doing.  Anyway, about ten minutes later, a man driving a small van-type-bus stops and when we say Krakow he nods and asks for $2 US (not bad for a 90 minute ride).  It turns out that these small buses run all over Krakow in competition with the public transportation system.  Whatever the case, it worked out well for us, as we were able to sit among the locals or a tiny, overcrowded bus all the way back to the city.  Whether that is your style or not, it was still awesome and definitely one to chalk up as an ever-so-talked-about “cultural experience” of studying abroad.  

Back at the main bus station, we had about 30 minutes to grab a quick lunch before finding another bus to take us to the Salt Mines.  Outside of Krakow, it is fair to say that the salt mines are not well known, but any tourist in the area quickly hears about them or reads of them in any travel book (Let’s Go, Lonely Planet…whatever your pleasure is).  

Saturday night, we headed to the main square for some dinner and to go out.  We found an awesome little vodka bar and settled there to start the night.  Turns out, this tiny bar was one of the coolest bars I have been to.  After a little wait, the bartender, and only person working in the place, came over and started to tell us a story of his life and his vodkas.  After some tasting, a discussion with him, a few laughs and some excellent Polish vodka history, we headed out back to the square.  The not so well-kept secret of Krakow is that the nightlife is insane.  With a bar and very chill club on every corner, each one less pretentious than the next, the city is alive at night.  We jumped from an underground music bar built in the caves of the city from hundreds of years ago serving liter beers to a Mexican themed dance club to a few random clubs that we just passed by, heard the music coming up from under the streets (as all the clubs are underground, through incredible entryways and staircases), and had an unforgettable time. 

Sunday was reserved for seeing Krakow only.  We did the castle, the main museum, the great park that circles the entire city, the storied Jewish Quarter and Jewish cemetery, the university quad in the middle of the city, the main square and beautiful church within it…everything.  Again, all these places have official names, all of which I knew last weekend and have in a guide book somewhere, but I can’t remember, but I have all the pictures for you. 

Our train left Sunday night at 11 p.m., so we grabbed some authentic Polish dinner in the main square and saw a great jazz singer for an hour before heading off to the train station.  In every guide book and from every tourist backpacking Europe, you will hear the same thing about Krakow: BEWARE OF THE TRAIN, BEWARE OF THE TRAIN.  To tell the entire story, all the legends, and myths too would take forever….but it comes down to mass amounts of theft involving not only the criminals, but many times the people working on the train and the police as well.  Okay, huge generalization there right?  Well, I guess, but the stories are true (some of them at least) because we have seen it happen and hear stories not from friends of friends of friends, but from people within our program and others in Prague as well.  Just be careful on the train of theft when you fall asleep, because as the guide books assure, you may be gassed, increasing the heaviness of your sleep and making it very easy to go through you bags and pockets (yes, they stand right over you and dig through your pockets and you just sleep right on through it).  So, I hugged my backpack, took my belt and strapped it around my chest and clipped the top of the bag to a necklace.  It was probably overkill, but the stories alone will scare you.  I should add that the day trains are a lot safer, but we were taking the midnight Krakow-Prague direct train, the most storied and famous of them all.  Thankfully, nothing happened on the train and we must have looked absolutely foolish, but the memories of us preparing for the nine hour ride are priceless. 

We arrive back in Prague at about 7:30 a.m. Monday morning, took a quick nap, and headed right to class.  A great weekend.  Have fun guys, enjoy.