first 3 days Poland: Kraków

After a couple of days of shopping, packing, more shopping, more packing, planning, plotting and so on finally Sunday came. Through Bruxelles-Midi on the train to Warschau, to continue from there on to Kraków.

There isn't much interesting to say about the journey, except it was long and boring, and we were joined in Hannover by some 30 very noisy teenage korfballers from Oude Pekela (of all places, northern Netherlands, the equivalent to rednecks), who turned out to be overbooked as well. Despite promises there was no restaurant wagon, and I will definitely complain to Deutsche Bahn about this. The dude in the Russian part of the train refused to pour even a cup of tea if you weren't from his wagon. We were allowed to have a smoke on their balcony though, untill those noisy Groningers swarmed the place. Within 15min. all of a sudden (suprise suprise) the door was locked.

Ah well. Once you arrive in Kraków you immediately notice one thing: It's just not Russia. And I don't mean "Jeeh wiz, I can read the signs here" but the entire ambiance of the city feels much more European, and more importantly, much more open and hospitable.
As soon as you arrive in the city centre that feeling is confirmed again: The central square, with a tourist-bullshit-mall in the middle, is surrounded by terrasses and pubs of all sorts and kinds. The buildings are of a typical Polish kind of Gothic, with a few neo-classical and barok exceptions. Street artists such as 3 accordeonists playing the most beautiful pieces quite astoundingly, fire dancers, 6 old crones in authentic clothing playing authentic music while one of them dances with a little girl, a dude trying to do a live scarecrow, amidst the well-known pigeon plague, all in all it just feels and tastes very Bourgondianly cosy.
Although Kraków is much more expensive than Moskva or St. Petersburg, it's still quite a bargain, with prices ranging from half up to a third of The Netherlands', depending on what you buy where.

As usual Irene arranged an almost perfect spot for us, which meant we were sitting right at the heart of the city for the ridiculous price of EUR20,- a night. We could even hear the firemen play the Hejnal (hee-naau). A long time ago, when the Tartars tried to take the city by suprise, somebody else stood there and did that. The good fellow died while doing it, but in doing so he did save the city. That's why for over 600 years they play the Hejnal to every wind direction from the central church, and every time the last note is abruptly silenced.

One of the main attractions is the keep of Wawel. In Wawel one can finely observe the function of a beautifaction committee. There is a Gothic church, but through the centuries every Krol (king) Jan-Stupid-ski added his own chapel, in contemporary style.

The end result is a unique, though a bit bizarre church, where all of Poland's kings (and two generals because of historical services rendered to the country) are buried.

The keep itself is, after the riches of the Hermitage, basic, though very grand.

Another unique thing about Wawel is that it's, according to Hindus, one of the 6 fixed earth-chakra's. No-one there is allowed to speak about it, and the travel guide stopped short of "look for peacefully praying hippies" which weren't there at the time, so I have no idea.

Oh and name one other monarchy that has a "Dragon's Den" in it's main residence palace hill. The Polaks are very much into that dragon. The monstrous statue at the exit of the Den is the single most bizarre dragon I've ever seen, but it ís scary ;-)

After another tour, through the Jewish quarters (which isn't so Jewish after the Nazis, there are only living about a few hundred out of almost 3 million Jews in Kraków), where much remains to be found about how those millions of Jews more or less peacefully coexisted with the Polaks, and one of it's highlights is a 17th century cemetary successfully hidden from the Nazis.

After that we decided to go for some chocolate fondue at the Café Camera (very tasty place with delicious chocolate), which is a must-go for women visiting Kraków.
The jazz-bars are highly recommendable as well, and we happened to be there with one of the best jazz-festivals of Kraków in full swing, which made for some very relaxxing evening jams.

On our last day in Kraków we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Auschwitz is a Germanisation for Oświęcim, and was initially built by the Nazis to house a couple of thousand convicted Polaks. Throughout the years it evolved into a slavery camp, where about 20.000 Polaks, Jews, gays, Jehovas and Romas were worked to death simultaneously.
Less than 5km away is Auschwitz-II, Birkenau, which was a real annihilation camp. Some 100.000 people at any one time where stored here in wait for their death, which could come by many ways, of which the infamous gas chambers where perhaps the most humane. Even the lowest estimates still show that more than 1,5 million people were killed of systematically in the entire Auschwitz-complex, by diseases, famine, phenol-injections, sterilisation-experiments, Zyklon-B, exhaustion or just plainly bullets. We've all heard these numbers and seen these horrors. But when one is walking in between the hundreds of barracks of Birkenau one starts to understand the cold efficiency and the sheer massive scale of it all, sending shivers down one's spine. Butterflies roam around the green pastures, and suddenly you notice a frog jumping in water, which has an odd grey colour to it. Grey of the ashes of all the dead burnt here.
When you walk through Auschwitz afterwards, and you arrive in a hall where almost 2000 of the 7000 found kilos of hair are on display, you truly begin to realise how many people where slaughtered like beasts. Endless heaps of hair, metre after metre, untill suddenly you notice this long, bright red braid laying there... Auch...
After that a hall as big as a basketball field containing metres and metres of shoes, stacked up high. All of these shoes once belonged to a pair of feet that disappeared into the ovens.
All this stuff was found by the Soviets when they liberated the camp, and that was only what had remained after the Nazis pulled out, taking everything they could.
And everybody who first came there (half of which was immediately sent to the gas chambers, no questions asked) believed they were on their way to a new life. After a gruelling journey of up to 10 days in cattle wagons, already killing off dozens, they arrived with papers promising them lots of land and new jobs, only to be murdered off and murdered as systematically and inhumanely as possible.
Very impressive, doesn't let go. And I can't help but wish that they'd sent anybody elected into a high office around here first, to get some sense knocked into those crude heads.

Ah well. We're leaving Kraków to tour the Carpathians, but we will definitely return. This city just has much more to offer!

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