Krakow Poland

Guide Sɫawek doing his best 

I made a dumbass mistake on my first full day in Krakow, which if you know me is not a surprise. I signed up for two walking tours, almost back to back. The Jewish Quarter Tour and the Old Town Tour with Krakow Explorers. Then to add to my stupidity I thought it would be a good idea to walk the hour and a bit into town from where I was staying and then at the end of it all, walk back. I will never be mistaken for a MENSA candidate that is for sure and this just went into the NO category. For now, let's return to the scene of the crime, Krakow Old Town. It was just an easy 1 hour and 15 minute walk from my hotel. Yup, no problem to start by day with this stupidity.

Certainly not my stop

Let me step back a bit. I stumbled onto something a few years back while travelling in and around England and Wales where hotels can be a bit costly. The answer to that is not staying in a dorm with a bunch of 20 somethings but univercity student housing. There are residency groups that post rooms for rent for short term travellers and I used them in London, Bath, York and Nottingham. In this case it was Next Door Student Housing which I found on Booking.com and booked a standard single studio. My intrepid walking journey began there and with a decent night sleep, google maps primed and a skip in my step I headed out into the sunny morning. Then it happened, my first sneeze which is no big deal, but then came the second. Now for context, a few days before I left for Berlin my sister Kelly and I took a quick trip to Toronto for the "Celebration of Life" for my Uncle Bill Wilkerson. We ended up running through the rain because I refused to take the TTC from Union to St Patrick Station where the ceremony took place. We ended up walking a few block in the pouring rain, which is no big deal. That was until Kelly started sneezing the next day. I told her to "eat more vegetables." Well I will skip the details but I am sick as a dog after my marathon wander around Krakow. "I will sweat it out" was my mantra, which let do day 2 in my university dorm room sleeping away most of the day, leaving once to go to the Żabka, Polands answer to Mexicos OXXO. 

The Square of Ghetto Heroes.

I learns quite a bit about the history of the Jewish people in Krakow and Poland on my tour. This was not just about the War Years, but went back almost a 1000 years and how the Jews have been persecuted even during ancient times. The guide used the word "Pogroms" often which is a Russian word which means "To "wreak havoc, to demolish violently." There were a couple of things that caught my attention on this tour. The first was The Square of Ghetto Heroes. This was the platform in Krakow where the Jews of the Ghetto stood waiting to be seperated and to which camp they would go to, Płaszów (labour) or Auschwitz (death). There is a series of 65 chairs, each representing 1000 people who came though this square. The chairs were because so many of the jews had small chairs to sit on while they awaited their fate.  It it quite humbling.

The second thing that make me stand up and go "holy crap" was when were were standing outside of the elementary school, much like the photo here from Schindler's list. In the movie, the Nazis line up 7 adult male prisoners and shoot them with a high powered gun, to see how many they could kill with just one bullet. In reality, they lined up 7 children that they pulled from the very school. The viewing public would never have allowed that in the movie and it would have been too much to bear and I suspect society would have protested the movie, regardless of it's historical accuracy because seeing kids lined up and killed like that would have caused riots in the streets. So there is fact in the scene but it was tampered down. Just to stand on that corner knowing that this occurred no more that ten feet from where I was standing seriously took my breath away. I made a mental note to watch Schindler's list that night.

The second tour was the Old Town Tour and I have to be honest, it was a waste of time for me. I was beat and whatever Covid style bug was attacking my system was revving up. A few times I almost dropped out of the tour but this guy makes his living by tips so I stuck it out like a hero. We did finish the tour on the fort which was impressive, and it was there that I learned the legend of the Wawel Dragon. 

The Tours are done and so am I but "Fu** it" I am walking the hour back to my room. It was easy enough and I stopped at the river a few times to chill, but in the end it was a nice day. HOWEVER, then came the second day where I was going to visit quite a few historical sites but that never happened. I also found out that you needed a predetermined ticket with a timestamp on it to visit Auschwitz, and the earliest available was now May 11th. There was NO way I was going to come all this way, Covid bug or not, and not visit that terrible site. I booked the ticket and decided I needed to come back to Krakow for at least 3 more days to take in what I missed and so that is what I am going to do. Flexibility with travel is the only way to go. That being said, this choice put a damper on my ability to visit all 3 baltic nations that were high on my agenda for doing this trip this way. I have a flight booked from Krakow to Dubai on May 12th, so it depends on how I want to manage my time. I do not want to just rush into Lithuania to say that I was there. I may just hang around Poland for the month as there is much to see and do. It would not be the worst use of my travel time.