Krakow, Poland

Famous for grand royal castles, hideous German WWII concentration camps, Oscar Schindler's factory, yummy dumplings, and many other quirky historical facts, Krakow was a good spot to enjoy the first May bank holiday.

Wawel Castle

Sitting on a hill overlooking the city and the river the Wawel castle is the central tourist attraction in Krakow. We made a couple of trips but were without luck in getting tickets to the big draw card rooms on the interior so we had to make do with strolling the grounds and enjoying the view.

Main Market Square, Krakow

We managed to make friends with a couple of Pole's from Gdansk who helped us sneak in to the main bell tower overlooking the square just in time to see the trumpet being blown out the window to mark the passing of another hour. It was a stroke of luck to catch this century old tradition, enjoy the views from the top and to get inside this fantastic building.

Auschwitz

After our tour of the Auschwitz concentration camps, Gabrielle and I sat back down in the bus and realised that we had not spoken for 3 hours. There wasn't a lot of talking on the bus in general, and I'm sure that hollow feeling was throughout every other tourist bus there - strange that hundreds of people would want to spend half a day of their holiday touring through such a place. I guess, like us, those people needed to see for themselves the size of the camps, the reality of the cells, the harrowing photo's and the vastness of the remaining personal belongings to realise that such unbelievable stories are actually true.

A better way to spend Monday

On Monday, we grabbed some big steel bikes and pedalled along the river out of Krakow to a monastery that dates back 1,000 years (the site has always been a monastery but the building itself has been re-hashed many times). We returned with sore bums and some slight sunburn - nice to see the start of summer.