27th June: Relieving the Nazi’s era in Auschwitz

No visit to Poland is complete without the trip to Auschwitz, a concentration camp. Despite all the stories from people saying how depressing and scary the place is, we all decided to go over. For 30 PLN/person, we have a English-speaking tour guide and it was a 4-hour walking trip. But before we have all the depressing stuff, we were on our way to look out for Polish delicacies again, and this time it is a holy one.

The name of the shop 

The last pope, pope Jean-Paul II is a Polish. And his favourite dessert was a thing that tasted like a mille cake. Pastry with custard cream in the middle. And Oswiciem is actually famous for that! We went to this store, which supposed to make the best mille cake in the country. And it didn’t disappoint us.

Mille cake

The interior of the cafe

The Auschwitz camp trip started with a video viewing session, giving us a rough idea on what a concentration camp is and how was the development of the concentration camp.  A lot of people thought that after a visit to Auschwitz camp visit, it will be very traumatising or depressing. And indeed it should be like that. I felt a little depressed, especially when we reach the section with rows and rows of pictures of children. It is quite bizarre to think that someone like Hitler will do something so cruel to achieve his goals. If you are in Europe, a visit to any concentration camp is a must in your itinerary.

Work for freedom

The one of the many barb-wired place

Over here and be shot to death

The supposedly road to freedom is actually road of death

The countries that were affected

The number of people killed

Well, nothing much be said about this trip other than through pictures. Despite all the sad encounter during the trip, the weather was perfect. Blue sky and the sun can make no one be sad forever. The following pictures were from Auschwitz-Birkenau which is different from the main camp. To get here, there is a shuttle bus ferrying visitors from the main camp to the Birkenau or Auschwitz II. There was supposed to be a third camp, the Monowitz but the building got torn down right after the fall of Hitler.

Entrance of Auschwitz-Birkenau

The rows of bunk beds for the abductees

One of the many cells

Their toilet which one can use only twice a day

Today is relatively simple. The last night in Krakow, we went to this small little cafe for some dinner before walking around the town until night falls (mind you, night falls at 10pm?). And then it’s time to turn in early for a long drive again to our last destination in Poland, the mountain areas of Zakopane!

Starters : Tomato soup

Some chees-baked thingy

Duck and cranberry jam (super dry)

26th June: Wanna see a dragon?

The day started with a good breakfast provided by the hostel. And we started exploring the town, through the Old Town Square. Saw a lot of buskers around and Dagmara was even scared by one of them! Haha. So we walked to this place called the Florenc Gate and in front of the gate, there was this wall where vendors hang drawings of different size and shapes against it. And the effect is really beautiful, like a big piece of collage!

Pretty?

From there, we walked again to the castle, where there is a cathedral and a dragon. The cathedral housed tombs of previous kings and also the Polish president who died in a plane crash few years ago. There were many people there as well to pay their respect for the president.

The tomb of the previous president

And afterwards, we went up to the bell tower, to witness the large bell, which can produce sound that travels almost 30 km far! But the climb up the tower is not an easy one, with steep staircase and low arch at some places.But the bell was magnificent!

Ding Dong Bell

Next up, we went to see a dragon! A fire spitting dragon! It was actually just a dragon statue. According to the legend, the dragon attacked Krakow in the olden days and one of the warrior killed him by feeding him real salty water. Hmph, I wonder if the salt were from Waliszka?

Dagmara is always wanting us to get the best Polish food from Poland. So she wanted to bring us to this cafe which served krakovian traditional stew in the Jewish Quarter. She said that this cafe was on the television before and we couldn’t really find it when we were there. We asked around a few times but nobody seemed to hear it before. Then she thought that maybe the shop changed its name. So we went around the square which eventually lead us to the cafe. Yeap, the changed their name. Krakovian traditional stew was really good, a slab of meat in some tasty gravy, placed on top of two pieces of bread, that will soak up all the gravy. It was really tasty and filling.

The Krakovian stew

My ultimate yucky Caesar salad (no croutons)

And, boyfriend and I tried buttermilk for the first time. In my imagination, buttermilk is literally milk added with butter, and it is hot. But when the drink came, it was cold, and it tasted like yoghurt drink, a more sour version. And I like it!

After that, we went food hunting again, for this thing called Zapikanki. It seems that this is probably the only food that I can remember it’s Polish name. Basically, this is a long baguette, baked with cheese on it. You can choose any toppings of your preference. But the traditional one, according to Dagmara was fried onions only.No meat! We ordered one to share and it was really really good.

Dagmara and I, posing with our Zapikanki 

Boyfriend and Dagmara

Zapikanki!

And so we continued walking, to digest off our food, which was really a lot of food. In the evening, boyfriend and I decided to watch a classical musical performance in St Peter’s and St Paul’s church in the church district. It costs 30PLN per person for about one hour performance. This is my first classical music concert. And I must say, for the price I pay, it was really a good show. The soloists were very professional. Apart from violin, we had a flute and a trumpet soloist. It is amazing how the church can give good acoustic effect! How I wish we have this in Singapore/Malaysia! And after the performance, I had a sudden urge to pursue music again. But we will see!

The music hall

Us before the concert

25th June: Salt mine visit

Today, after we woke up, we were still addicted to the gnome hunting game. So after breakfast at the Old Market Square, we went gnome hunting again. We managed to find about 30 plus of them Not a bad record given the time we have. And after that, it was another long drive to another town called Wieliczka.

Place where we had breakfast

3 little gnomes

I love you gnome

Emo gnome

Monkey gnome

We were just in time to catch the last English tour at the salt mine. So off we went, climbing down the stairs. When I said stairs, I mean stairs, a lot of them. I think we went about 40 floors under! The salt mine wasn't cheap at all. We paid about 20 pounds and still get an unfriendly reply from the person at the counter saying "It's now or never"...Oh well, we were late in the first place.

Anyway, we went underground where the salt mine started, and our tour guide brought us in, and deeper to the salt mine, explaining the history of the salt mine in Poland and how the salt crystals can be used to build monuments or even the whole building. I am not kidding! They have this freaking hall sitting right in the salt mine which can be used for various ceremony. We were lucky that on that particular day, the hall was going to be used as a wedding reception. So we could see the staff decorating the hall. And oh, they have a pretty chandelier hanging from the ceiling (which is formed from salt crystals) that are made from, yeap salt crystals!

The princess who gave salt to Poland

Sculpture of the Last Supper from salt crystal

The hall-the floors are actually salt crystals as well

After about 1 hour plus in the salt mine, we went to a near by cafe for dinner. Not too bad.

Dinner

And after that, is a half an hour drive to our destination Krakow (pronounced as Kra-kov). After settling into our hostel, we went around the Old Market Square, just in time to see fireworks. It was another mid-summer celebration. *Sigh I just love fireworks!

Fireworks

As we were walking back to our hostel, Dagmara decided that we should try Chinese take away from Poland. We were not hungry, but her boyfriend got one anyway. We even argued what chinese mushrooms are. LOL! That was a really fun night! But the noodles weren't that great:P.

Note to Dagmara: If you ever come to Singapore, we shall bring you to eat real Chinese mushrooms and real Chinese friend noodles ;)

24th June: Wrocław, try to read it?

If you are going to pronounce it as vroclaw, let me stop you from being embarrassed like what we did in front of our Polish friend. It is pronounced as vrotz-vaf. Yeap!

After another scrumptious breakfast this morning, Dagmara took her car and drove us 4 hours away from her hometown to this busy town. We were going to spend a night in this town. Along the way, when we stopped for our toilet break, we found this little playground overlooking a hugeeeeeee man-made lake. Oh well, as grown up as we are, we couldn't resist to sit on the swing and imagine we were flying *giggles*

When we finally arrived in Wrocław, we checked into our hostel and Dagmara brought us for a late lunch (dinner for the Polish) in the interesting cafe that she used to go when she was a student. The food is just normal, but the interior was decorated with large wooden spoon and fork!

Wooden cutlery in the cafe

And next, we were told about this interesting activity that the Wrocław city council planned for their tourists. Gnome hunting! Yes, gnome hunting. Around the town, especially the Old Market Square, there were many bronze, cute looking gnomes for tourists to hunt. They even have maps and books that show you where exactly the gnomes are. But, to discover as many gnomes as possible by yourself is the fun part. So don't go spoil this fun thing by purchasing the map and search according to the map.

Poor gnome

Rar! I'm going to protect my city from the humans! Rar!

After the lunch and a few gnome hunting, Dagmara brought us to cathedral island. Like the name, it is a small area filled with cathedrals. Frankly, I don't really know how to appreciate cathedrals but I have to admit that the skills/workmanship that applied to building the cathedral is really amazing and sometimes unbelievable. And further into the town, they have a "love bridge". Yeap, locks with couples' name engraved on it and locked onto the bridge to symbolized their never-ending love. It is supposed to be Dagmara's favorite bridge.

In the night, we went to see musical fountain. Just like the one they have in Barcelona. But I thought the one here was much prettier and eye-catching that the one in Barcelona. The musical fountain lasted for 20 min before we catch a bus back to the old market square again for a late dinner.

Musical fountain with light shows and projection too!

In the market, there were stalls set up in lieu of the summer solstice celebration. So we had crepes, meat skewers. The boys got some discount as they managed to order in Polish for the meat skewer. Such friendly Polish! And after that, we went to this microbrewery for a drink.

Late dinner

Huge meat skewer

Beer in microbrewery with bread and lard spread

23rd June: Christy Corpus in Poland

Today was a public holiday in Poland due to the Christy Corpus celebration. Today was also the Polish Father's day. The morning started off with the usual hearty breakfast, prepared by non other than Dagmara's mom. Yes, we had the tomato thingy again. Loving them infinitely!

Breakfast table

Dagmara then brought us out around Kalisz town with her brother and sister-in-law. The town is really quite small. She brought us to their town theatre, to see the buildings that matters to them. It was such a wonderful town, to see all the old buildings that have several hundreds or even thousands of years. This is what a city full of history should look like. Around Poland, one can actually meet Pope John Paul II. Yes, he is a Polish, and no he is not alive anymore. Polish have so much pride in the previous Pope that they build monuments of him everywhere. He is like their national pride.  After that is to the Old Market Square to see the Christy Corpus celebration. It was not very big but yet still very grand. There was choir groups singing and many devotees were there to worship the corpse of jesus. I don't know much about this festival so can't elaborate so much about it.

Theatre

The Pope

Christy Corpus celebration

After the celebration, we went back for the Polish dinner, which is our lunch. Their dinner is usually taken between 2-4 pm. So that was what we did. We had tomato soup with pasta as starters. Dagmara's mom really is a good cook. The tomato soup is so refreshing and tantalizing. I wish I could have some now. Next up was main course. We are having the "pigeon" again, and so much more. Boyfriend did something silly during the dinner. He wanted to offer Dagmara's dad the bowl of potatoes but he didn't know how to say potatoes in Polish. But out of nowhere, he said "patatas?" (potatoes in Spanish) and Dagamara's dad couldn't understand. We had a good laugh:) After the meal, we sat around to chat. Dagmara acted as our translator because we could not speak any Polish and her family not a single English. Polish people are really nice. They may look or even sound rude when you first met them but deep down inside, they are really friendly, nice and hospitable.

The evening was wrapped up with a bowling session with Dagmara's friends, Marta and Lukasz. Well guess who lose? Yeap me! I don't know why I can never excel in sports. *sigh* And after that, we went for a drink in a cafe called Kaliszfornia (yeah, I know, the name!). Their chocolate milk shake was awesome. We were supposed to meet another of Dagmara's but in the end she couldn't make it, so we went to this cool Italian restaurant that is situated down a basement. So it was pretty cold down there. We were quite late by the time we decided to have dinner, so there wasn't anyone else other than us. Yeah, private restaurant! So, this was the last day of our stay in Kalisz. Tomorrow, it will be a new town.