Poland

Poland would have to be one of my favorite places I have been to so far on this trip, so I thought I would dedicate a whole blog to it. I arrived in Warsaw after another dreadful overnight bus-trip from Lithuania. Warsaw is dominated by a Gothic looking King-Kong style sky-scraper but it definitely is a city with a lot of character. The highlight of my stay here was a visit to the Warsaw uprising museum. The city at the peak of Nazi occupation held a 3 month stance against the Nazi forces with little assistance from the Russians or other allies. Despite the wars and Russian occupation the people here and all over Poland know how to enjoy life and have a fantastic sense of humour.

After Warsaw it was onto Krakow which has to be one of my favorite cities I have been to in all my travels. What is not to like about a place with a perfectly preserved old town, a Jewish quarter which has some cool bars and cafes which could match Melbourne and some crazy night-life. Here I met up with Julie and her friend Bertie and we saw some of the sites of Krakow and its surrounds. On the first day we visited the salt-mines outside of Krakow where they have all these salt carvings and even a whole cathedral where the alter and all the tiles are made of salt.

The Jewish quater in Krakow is amazing. Despite the history surrounding it, it is now a really cool place to hang out in and you can even eat zakapana from the best zakapana store in Poland.

Despite all the fun there was definitely one sobering moment in Krakow and that was our visit to Auschwitz and its neighboring camp Birkenau. I have seen a lot of horrible places in my travels and know a lot about WW2 but you do not realise the enormity of the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jewish race until you have visited this place. It is probably the lowest we have sunk as a human race. The Auschwitz camp has been kept as a reminder so we don't forget what happened. Exhibitions of human hair, glasses, babies clothes leave you physically moved. Probably the most moving moment for me was the trip to Birkenau which was the camp where most of the deaths occured. Here there were 3 massive gas chamber capable of killing 2000 people an hour. Standing on the train platform was so moving, as you imagined with the flick of a Nazi doctors hand you could be sentenced to immediate death or a slower more painful death in the camp. I have never understood the psychology behind what makes a race of people do this sort of thing to another. Surely somewhere along the way enough Germans would have tried to put a stop to this.... I think Auschwitz is a pretty personal experience and each of us experienced it differently but it is important that it is never forgotten and never repeated.
It was sad to say goodbye to Julie and Bertie after Krakow but I went onto a city called Wroclaw which was a vibrant student town in the west of Poland. This town has a beautiful university, so many churches and the old town has a large collection of gnome statues which are scattered throughout the town. The town being a university town has a long history of resisting Poland's various occupants from the Nazis to the Russians. After a bit over a week I was off to the Czech republic.

For more photos click here.