Adventure Travel Photography Blog
I arrived in Krakow from Prague via a seven-hour train ride. I followed the signage from the train station to Krakow’s Old Town which took me through the mall, up to an exit through a Christmas market, down into a tunnel beneath a street and then into a lovely park dusted in a light snow. The walk through the park to one of the many streets that lead the square was quite soothing after a long day.
EXPLORE!
While it is easy to simply google “free walking tours in Krakow”, I recently came across an app called freetour.com. It is great! I typed in Krakow and found a walking tour of Krakow’s Jewish Quarter and one of Krakow’s Old Town.
Today I joined the tour for Krakow’s Jewish Quarter. The English-speaking tour met at in front of St. Mary’s Basilica in Old Town at 2:30pm. Given it was winter time and dark very early, the tour was two hours rather than the advertised two and half hours. That was fine with me.
EXPLORE!
When visiting Krakow, seeing Auschwitz is a must. Auschwitz, a complex of 48 concentration and extermination camps, was operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. The complex includes Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz along with several subcamps.
Auschwitz was the largest Nazi German concentration and death camp. Between the years 1940 and 1945 when Auschwitz operated, the Nazis deported at least 1.3 million people to the camp, including 1,000,000 Jews, 150,000 Poles, 23,000 gypsies, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and 25,000 prisoners of other ethnicities. Of these prisoners, 1,100,000 died. 90% were Jewish. Most were killed in gas chambers, but many also died from illnesses and starvation.
Continue reading “Six Hour Tour of Auschwitz”
The skies were clear when we awoke today and the forecast called for mostly sunny in Gdansk, Poland. While I was hopeful, the barometer in my head suggested otherwise. My head turned out to be right. The day turned colder and wetter by the hour, though fortunately we were able to get most of our tour in before the drizzle. Continue reading “Kayaking the Motlawa River in Gdansk, Poland”