It was mid-afternoon, on a very hot day, when we finally left Kutna Hora in Czech Republic to head for Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots varv) in Poland. Crossing the border was weird, all the buildings are still there and we had to slow to 40km to go through the barriers, but that was it, it was like a ghost town.
As soon as we got into Poland, the roads took a turn for the worse. The main highway was single lane, with potholes deep enough to lose a small car in. It was like driving from Timaru to Dunedin with no passing lanes, and five times more trucks – plus several tractors and combine harvesters. Needless to say it was a slow trip, and we didn’t arrive until around 7pm. As we suspected, Gloria’s maps of Eastern Europe weren’t as detailed as the rest of the EU, so she tried to point us the wrong way down a couple of one-way streets, which is an experience to be avoided in the middle of a big city like Wroclaw.
The hostel we had booked was right in the middle of the city and parking was not easy to find. We finally found a spot, and to make sure we didn’t lose it, Deb ended up reversing down one of the main one-way streets in the city – hazard lights blazing away, and cars jumping lanes to get out of her way. Hamish stood shaking his head and watching the traffic as it went around her like she was doing nothing out of the ordinary. Deb felt she was finally starting to get the hang of driving in these cities.
We chose to stay in a hostel whilst in Wroclaw so that we could get a bit of R&R away from the constant socialising of Couchsurfing. Plus, we had been told there wasn’t too much to see in the city, so we figured we wouldn’t feel obliged to spent the whole time sightseeing. But no! We didn’t get a lot of sleep, as the place was in a noisy area of town, and we found out that there is in fact plenty to see in Wroclaw. So the next day we walked the short distance to the Rynek (main square), which is very large, and has been fully restored after being virtually flattened in WWII. We went over the river to Cathedral Island, and then down to see the famous facades of the old university buildings. We found the old historic area to be very pretty, but you only have to travel a couple of blocks away from the central area to find simple and plain buildings much like we saw in Czech Republic and parts of the old East Germany.
After two nights, and not much R&R, we were on the road again, heading south east to Krakow (pronounced Krarkov - Polish is, according to most Europeans, one of the most difficult language to learn). Once again Gloria didn’t seem to know the area very well, informing us that we had arrived at our destination when we were right next to some sort of private swimming lake, with bars and playgrounds. After some driving around we decided to go back to the lake and ring our host Jan (Yarn) and wait for him to come get us. And sure enough he lived only about 2 blocks away. We had to pay 5 zloty each for the privilege of sitting by the lake, and then another zloty if we wanted to go to the toilet. Commercialism has certainly been embraced by the Poles.
The houses in the villages and small towns across most of Poland were quite different to what we’d seen elsewhere. Most seemed to serve no other purpose than to provide a place for their inhabitants to live. Very few places had mown lawns, and even fewer had gardens, other than maybe a vege garden in the midst of all the long grass. The houses seemed to be constructed out of whatever blocks or bricks the builder could access at the time. Some (even new ones) would be built out of 3 or 4 different types, sizes, or colours of bricks. It appeared that the idea was that they would eventually be plastered over, but this didn’t seem to be occurring in many cases.
Of course, if you live in the city, there is a very high chance you will live in an apartment – most of which were built in communist times when people were being forced to the cities to work in the factories. They form a ring around the outskirts of most cities, and are very dull and sombre, even those that have been painted bright colours in an attempt to brighten up the gloom.
The other sad thing we noticed was that, instead of the ubiquitous corner shops selling groceries, they were mostly full of liquor – the vast majority of which was vodka. And by all accounts they seemed to be doing a good trade.
Jan lives in a small village of about 1,000 people, on the outskirts of Krakow. His house is huge, and he has 3 others boarders/flatmates living in the house with him, along with a golden lab dog. He owns a business that rents apartments to tourists – his niche market is “dental tourism”, where he arranges packages for people in other parts of the EU to access cheap dental services in Krakow.
The next morning, we headed off to Oswiecim (the Polish name for Auschwitz), which is about an hour’s drive from Krakow. Along the way we stopped at a small village to check out the Saturday street-market. No one spoke English and we’re sure someone must have put a sign on us saying “strange looking people, please stare!” Anyway we managed to buy some bits and pieces, using mostly sign language. It was an interesting experience!!!
When planning our trip, we decided that we wanted to visit a German concentration camp, and if it was going to be only one, then Auschwitz/Birkenau seemed to be the obvious choice. We started off in Auschwitz, and took the 2½ hour guided tour – a necessity if you want to get enough information on what occurred there. Being a weekend in the middle of the summer holidays meant that there were huge crowds there, but this didn’t seem to diminish the impact of the whole thing (although we did get annoyed by the numerous people who insisted on taking photos in the rooms where it specifically said no photos). After Auschwitz camp we took the bus the 3kms up to the much larger Birkenau camp. This is where the full scale of the death factories hit us – the place was huge. Over 100,000 people were held captive here. Up to 20,000 arrived every day, with 75% of these being sent directly to the gas chambers. It was a very numbing feeling to stand on the spot where people got off the trains and were herded to their deaths. All the photos and films we have ever seen came vividly to life.
We had expected that we might become quite emotional when faced with the atrocities that occurred in these two camps, and were a little concerned that we both felt numb, and almost removed from it all – a kind of nothingness. But when we thought about it – how do you comprehend seeing 2 tonnes of human hair piled up? Or 40,000 pairs of shoes? Let alone all the spectacles, suitcases, and other personal items? The experience consumed our thoughts for many days afterwards, and still affects us now.
Another big attraction at Krakow is the Weiliczka Salt Mine. This was again a test of claustrophobia for us both, but turned out to be a vastly different experience to the mine in Germany. This is a major tourist destination, with about one million people doing the tour each year. We descended via wooden stairs to a depth of 90 metres to find that all the tunnels were wide, high, and well lit. The place was amazing though. We saw how they extracted to the rock salt during the 600 years that the mine operated. The caverns were huge, some reaching up to 30 metres high. They even had horses working down there to help lift the 360kg barrels of rock salt to the surface.
The real highlights though were the many caverns that had been transformed into memorials and monuments of one form or another, with amazing friezes and statues carved out of the rock salt. The crowning jewel though was the 50 metre long and 30 metre high chapel that was 110 metres below ground. The entire room is carved for the salt, and they have used different coloured rock salt to very great effect with the statues, chandeliers, and the altar. Even the floor has elaborate designs carved into it. Mass is still celebrated there every Sunday. People often get married there, with the reception in the hall just down the adjoining tunnel.
At the end of the 2 hour tour, we squeezed into another toilet-sized lift and were wizzed back to the surface. We were told that we had only covered 1% of the area that had been mined during the time it was operational.
The city of Krakow is also well worth spending the time to explore. It was the original capital of Poland, and as such has a very rich history. We spent several hours checking out the Rynek (the biggest in all of Europe), plus the castle and cathedral. We also walked through the Jewish Quarter of Kazimiere, where 40,000 Jews lived prior to WWII. Now there are an estimated 100. We were told that it is becoming quite trendy to live in the area, but we found it to be very tired and run down. We visited Remuh Synagogue, which is the only one that still conducts religious services in Krakow. It is very tiny, and we were allowed to take photos until prayer was due to begin, then we had to leave, which we thought was fair enough. Unlike the majority of Catholic Churches we’ve visited, where the tourists continue to mill around, take photos, and talk loudly while Mass is being celebrated. It was interesting to see all the men in there big hats and long coats, with the curious long curl of hair down each side of their face.
Outside the synagogue there is a very old cemetery, with many extraordinary Renaissance gravestones. A large section of the external wall has been made using the broken headstones from previous destructive episodes in the cemetery’s past.
In Poland, as in the other countries of Eastern Europe, it was hard to ignore that many of the shop assistants and service were quite rude, and at times bordering on intolerant. Most of our hosts told us that this relates to the Communist times, when it didn’t matter if a shop person was rude to you, as their shop was usually the only butcher or baker in the town. Unfortunately this attitude seems to have rubbed off on a fair proportion of the younger generation as well. We also had heard that many of the older generation lament the passing of the Communist era. Jan, who is in his mid 30’s, can’t understand why these people romanticise the past, as he can vividly remember not being allowed to go to school some days, so that he could stand in line to get the family’s allocation of bread.
After three nights in Krakow, it was time to head back in a westerly direction. So we packed the car again and got back “♫on the road again♫”, heading for Brno in the south of Czech Republic.
We arrived about 7pm, after a drive of about 4½ hours. Our hosts we Marcel and Jana, a young couple who live in a modern apartment on the outskirts of the city. Their home had only one bedroom, so we had to sleep on camping mats on the floor of the living room.
We spent an enjoyable day checking out the old part of the city. Spilberk Castle was interesting to walk around, and the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul was one of the prettiest we have seen on our travels. The most interesting experience for us was the visit to the Capuchin Monastery, where the monks perfected a way of mummifying bodies using just natural air flow. We saw 41 corpses lying in open coffins and on the bare ground that were between 250 and 300 years old.
We quite liked our visit to Brno. Whilst it isn’t as stunning as places like Prague, it is nevertheless a very pretty city, with a great depth of history – and having far fewer tourists to contend with made the experience all the more enjoyable.
After two nights, it was time to bid farewell to our hosts and head south, across the border into Austria. Next stop Vienna.
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