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Day 3: last day in Krakow.
So today was my last day in historic and beautiful Krakow. Since I spent most of yesterday out of the city I had a lot I still wanted to see. I started my day by seeing a few more of the sights in the old town (some of which I saw on the walking tour on my first day). I walked around all the old streets, taking pictures and finding secret passages through buildings (marked out in my trusty map from the free walking tour). After about an hour I headed over to the St Mary's church to meet the free walking tour for the Jewish part of the city. Our tour guide, Joanna was excellent and took us on a journey through the history of the Jewish population of Krakow (not just about the holocaust). We saw the main square of the Jewish town, which was used in Spielberg's Schindler's List for the ghetto scenes (even though this was not part of the ghetto). There are a number of synagogues in and around the square which we saw. After learning about the pre-war history we crossed the river and went to Hero's square, the sight of the original Jewish ghetto. In the square there are a number of metal chairs dotted about facing different directions. This was the sight where hundreds of Jewish inhabitants would have to wait before they were taken off to camps, sometimes for many hours, so many of them brought chairs to sit on whilst they waited. At the south west corner of the square is the "Pharmacy Under The Eagle", the only polish run business allowed in the ghetto during the war.
After seeing Hero's square we headed to the final stop of the tour, Schindler's factory, which now contains a museum documenting the history of the occupation of Poland during the war. After 3 hours the tour was finally finished. Since we were right outside the factory (which was a good twenty minute walk from the old town centre) I decided to have a look inside before I headed back. During the tour I got talking to a guy from America and he joined me. The museum was really interesting, with each room designed to look like air shelters, office and even old streets. They even had a cinema room which showed a short film about the Oskar Schindler and the people who worked in the factory, some of which gave first hand accounts of what happened. There was so much to see that we could easily have spent 4 hours in there, but we were quite hungry so after just over an hour we came to the exit and headed back to the old town. During the tour Joanna recommended a market square that sells the best "zapiekanka" (basically a pizza topped baguette with mushroom sauce instead of tomatoes) so we he headed there to try it. For 6 zloty (£1.20) you get a foot long zapiekanka. It definitely didn't disappoint. If I wasn't so full after one I would have stayed for another. After refuelling me and my new American friend (Stephen) headed to the main square in the old town to do a bit of souvenir shopping for his family. After unsuccessfully trying to haggle £2 off a picture if Pope John Paul II for his grandma we decided to stop for a drink at one of the numerous bars that line the square. Whilst sitting and enjoying some authentic Polish bear we had the fortune of seeing some fellow Brits (clearly on a stag do) leave the bar next to us and proceed to vomit all over a police car. Lucky for them tho the policeman was nowhere around. Stephen found this while scene hilarious, just after we'd been having a standard English vs American debate. Just typical that when you're abroad you always see the drunken Brits about giving us a bad name. Anyway, after seeing that I didn't feel much like finishing my bear. By this point it was about 7pm so we parted ways as I needed to pack and he had to go meet friends. Back at the hostel I repacked my suitcase, said goodbye to the other travellers and headed to the station to catch the sleeper train to the second stop on my tour, Zagreb.
I'm currently lying on a couchette in a 6 bed cabin with 5 other travellers. But as I have written a lot today and as it is a sleeper train I will finish the blog here and tell you more about it tomorrow.
Il see you in Zagreb readers
Lois x
- comments
Momma bear omg this one is brilliant - fantastic read. BEER lois is the liquid drink BEAR is a fluffy animal lol
Papa Bear (not beer) lois another really fascinating blog you have set a high standard here and cant wait for the next one.