KRAKOW

 Ah, Krakow.  What can I say?  We arrived to find that unlike our two-story Penthouse apartment in Budapest that was sublime, our Krakow apartment was definitely ridiculous.  As Dale said, we got to live the Communist dream.  It was in a pre-war building that, like most buildings in Krakow, had not been renovated.  The apartment itself had been but was furnished with the bare minimum and lacked most amenities (no iron or ironing board, no drying rack though there was a washing machine, no pots and pans other than three small frying pans, no racks in the oven so even if you did have pans with which to cook something you had no racks on which to put them in the oven.  I couldn't even boil an egg.  I could go on and on).  Anyway, we decided to stick it out but cut our stay short by a day.  This was a good thing as our last day there the shower door broke so we had to tie the doors closed to keep water from spraying all over the bathroom, the toilet seat lid broke and, best of all, the whole handle/lock on the front door came off in Dale's hand when he tried to close the door.  Definitely not one of our better homeaway.com choices.

To be honest, though everyone says how beautiful Krakow is, we found it to be a bit depressing (the apartment may had added to that but . . . ).  Very few of the buildings have been renovated from before the war, they were black with grime and the streets with few exceptions were narrow.  The one bright spot was the old Market Square where every weekend they have a street fair with entertainment and lots and lots of food of which we partook.  And, it was good!

 In addition to all that's going on in the main square and the other small squares adjacent to it, there is also an indoor market which used to be the Cloth Market.  It's a lovely old building with stalls lining both sides.

Besides Market Square we also visited Wawel Castle.  It's a beautiful complex and, like Castle Hill in Budapest, has old Medieval ruins on its grounds (see forefront of the picture).

The main reason we came to Krakow though was to see Auschwitz/Birkenau which I will deal with in the next post, Schindler's Factory, and the Jewish Ghetto.  Schindler's Factory is primarily a museum now that tells the story of the plight of the Polish people, in particular the Jews, at the hands of the Nazi's during WWII.  I didn't take any photos but if you go to Krakow make sure you see it.

Below is the Krakow Ghetto Memorial.  It is set next to the tram stop and consists of 33 chairs set in the middle of the square with 37 smaller ones set around the edge and near the tram stop.  These chairs are used by people waiting for transportation on the buses or trams and are meant to convey that anyone can be a victim of deportation.  It was quite moving.

But with all the solemnity of the city, what we saw there and have yet to see, I choose to leave you with a smile.  Here's Dale sampling some Lody - that's Polish for ice cream.  It doesn't compare to gelato but it's pretty darn good.  These Pole's really like their ice cream and take it pretty seriously.  There's at least one stand on every corner and almost everyone walking around has a cone in his/her hand.