Thursday, September 26th - Wieliczka salt mine & Schindler's Factory

After figuring out Krakow's tram and bus system, I decided to follow the advice of my clients in Krakow and spend half of my first free day 10 miles out of town at the Wieliczka salt mine. I wondered why a salt mine was such a big deal until I visited this one. Almost a thousand years old with over 180 miles of tunnels and 2000 chambers, the sheer magnitude of the place was impressive. Salt was the best way to preserve food through most of the last millennium and as such, it made the city of Wieliczka and its miners very rich. Everything - floors, walls and ceilings is made of salt. Most interesting though is the artwork made of salt, which ranged from simple statues (first picture below) to elaborate chambers (second picture below) to entire rooms (third and fourth pictures below).

Saturday & Sunday, September 28th & 29th - Warsaw, the Royal Walk

After a quick tram ride from my hotel to Krakow's main rail station, I boarded express train 3110 to Warsaw at 10am. I was quickly reminded of how well the train system in Europe works, even in its less developed countries. By 1pm I was in Warsaw and checked into a corner suite with a great view (large picture top of page left) at the Warsaw Marriott. Unlike Krakow, which was spared most of the physical destruction of World War 2, Warsaw was essentially leveled by 1945, leaving today's contrasts in Warsaw's architecture to run the gamut of Soviet era ugliness, old town "recreated" and new age modern.

Armed with Rick Steves' Krakow, Warsaw & Gdansk snapshot guide, I walked east on Al. Jerozolimskie, then connected to the Royal Way north on Nowy Swat. Near Warsaw University the street name changes to Krakowski Przedmiescie and a large statue of Polish native Copernicus sits in front of the Copernicus Science Center (first picture below). Directly across the street is the Church of the Holy Cross, where Warsaw native Frederick Chopin's heart is entombed in one of the pillars (second picture below). The rest of his body is at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, where he spent most of his productive years. After a late lunch at the BrowArmia brewpub, I continued north past Radziwill Palace (third picture below), where the Warsaw Pact was signed in 1955 uniting the Soviet block. After a side walk through Saxon Garden, I continued into the huge old town square which was filled with people, cafes and wedding parties. I then explored the side streets, in the shadow of the Royal Palace (fourth picture below) before heading back to my hotel. It turned out to be at least 10 miles of walking that day, so half-way back I rewarded myself at A. Blikle Pastries with their famous paczki, which is a donut filled with rose flavored jelly. I finished the day at the Marriott's concierge lounge. After five days of jet lag and full schedules, I decided to sleep in Sunday morning before a short walk through the Soviet era Culture Palace grounds and a great Polish lunch at Restaurant Zgoda. I caught my train at 3:45pm, arriving back in Krakow around 7pm. Monday was a work day on-site with my clients followed by a work dinner.

Tuesday, October 1st - Auschwitz & Wawel Castle

On my last free day in Poland I decided to visit Auschwitz, which is located in Oswiecim, about 90 minutes outside of Krakow. I think it's a legitimate question to ask, why visit a horrible place like this on a vacation? For myself, with no Polish or Jewish heritage, it's the history and the impact that only "being there" can have. I could have read everything about Auschwitz and never gotten anywhere near the sense of the place that I got first-person. I have had four prior experiences visiting concentration camps - Sachsenhausen near Berlin twice, once with Ben and once with Craig, Mauthausen in Austria and Dachau near Munich. But Auschwitz was different. Besides being massive in size - 60 square miles in total, its purpose was not to house prisoners. Instead its main purpose was to exterminate them. Most people sent to the camp lived less than four hours after they arrived. It's hard to comprehend without seeing the huge gas chambers and crematoriums that over a million people were killed at Auschwitz in just over three years.

Auschwitz is actually three camps, the smaller base camp built from existing buildings, the much larger extermination camp called Birkenau and a labor camp, Monowitz. Much of the required guided tour takes place at the base camp, starting with the "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work sets you free) gate (first picture below) that is at every concentration camp. A bus takes the group over to Birkenau, about ten minutes away. The second picture below shows the view from the top of the iconic Birkenau guard tower with the rail line passing underneath it. Prisoners arrived in packed rail cars (third picture below) where they were "sorted" for immediate extermination in the gas chambers or for work. At the end of the rail line inside the camp a simple memorial is set up (fourth picture below). The guided tour was powerful and excellent, moving along at a fast clip throughout its three-plus hours. For me, Auschwitz is a solemn reminder, to paraphrase Lord Acton's famous quote from 1887, that a government - any government - given absolute power over its people will corrupt that power absolutely.