Chaos in Krakow!

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Trip start
February 6, 2026
Chaos in Krakow!
Place Nowy Krakow
Feb 5–9 in Poland ⋅ ☁️ 1 °C
We arrived at the airport on time. It then took an hour to navigate Border Control! Photographs and fingerprints. Found our taxi driver, and he whisked us away to our hotel. Hotel Estera is lovely and centrally located in the Kazimierez district. Our hotel room is large and comfortable. We identified the wardrobe easily. It was not so easy to establish how to open it! After some pushing and pulling, I spotted it has 2 doors, which react to pushing by opening. No handles!
We set off to explore the area and found Place Nowy just across the road. A square that has had a market since the 1400s. The roundhouse at its centre has a series of food booths selling Kapiekanka. This translates as Polish Street Pizza. Very tasty toasted french type bread with variations of sausage, mushrooms, bacon, onion , tomato, and cheese smeared with very yummy mustard. Rough cost £3.50 each. We also sampled the mulled wine. Neither of us had gloves for various reasons. However, Julia had one glove. We called our nice taxi man and he turned up later having found the errant glove in his taxi. I found my gloves in my bag!!
We had coffee and expresso martinis in the bar, followed by the essential vodka!Read more
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Chaos in Krakow!
Auschwitz - Birkenau
February 6 in Poland ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C
We arrived here around midday. The tour led by one 400 tour guides. It was an emotional, horrifying reality check. For me, the visit to Birkenau was very difficult. It was a long day but we both felt content that we had been to bear witness.

Sustained with vodka we set off to find dinner. Not far from the hotel we found a delightful Polish restaurant. Clean, bright and friendly.
Potato cakes and beef stwe followed by polish sweet cheese dumplings and blueberry dumplings with creme fraiche. Coffee and wine each. Cost: £42.

Juls here...
The visit to the camps was sobering and there was no soul to the place Our guide presented the facts in a calm and measured way and like Susan said we were content that we had been to bear witness to the atrocious crimes committed there.
We needed food and found a little gem of a place not far from our hotel where we enjoyed great food and some laughs we even shared our sweet cheese dumplings with our fellow diners and they shared their baked cheesecake with us...
Bed was calling legs and body grateful for being horizontal before an early start tomorrowRead more
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Chaos in Krakow!
Krakow old Town
February 8 in Poland ⋅ ☁️ 2 °C
So Saturday is here and today is 'golf cart tour of krakow' day!
Breakfast - taxi and locate golf cart and after some walking in the wrong direction and a phone call for assistance we were safely in the cart with headphones on
Saw the Slowacki Theatre -Barbican - Florians Gate amongst other important and interesting buildings
1 hour later dropped off and off we went exploring... stumbled across St Mary's Basicilla _Cloth Hall and the Town Hall Tower, there was an enormous head on the square not sure if was meant to be there or whether it had just fallen down from somewhere
There was a need for hot chocolate so popped into Chopins Cafe. There was a lack of donuts so opted for Polish Apple cake instead
More steps took us to Florians Gate with some essential Glove,Jug and tbag drainer purchases obviously!
Felt we needed a bit of culture so took a wander round the Czartopyski Museum saw a da Vinci _ we decided we didn't like it much.
More steps took us to the archbishops Palace where pope John Paul II was a student and opposite we visited the very beautiful Franciscan Church, even saw a Monk!
Off to Wawel and had a ticket drama _ despite this we were able to get into the Cathedral _ very austere place dark and quite intimidating but Susan overjoyed at getting her passport stamped and a lovely candle as a gift too!
Our feet were weary so we decided to make our way back to our Hotel but not before a trip to St Bernadino Church ...gold everywhere and so peaceful
We successfully negotiated the map and found our way back to Kazimierez and our hotel.
Boots off and rest before dinner both fell asleep so up we got and down to the bar we went for the obligatory aperitif..
Another great day of exploring 😊Read more
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Chaos in Krakow!
KAZIMIERZ, SCHINDLERS FAC
Feb 8–12 in Poland ⋅ ☁️ 2 °C
We slept in a bit this morning, but eventually, once booted and spurred, we set off. Our first stop was the flea market in the square.
We then headed off to find the various synagogues in the Kazimierz District. We visited two. The first was the Temple Synagogue. Quite big and lovely, albeit simple. Viewed an exhibition about the fate of the Jewish community during WW11.
The 2nd Synagogue was smaller but beautiful. It is the oldest Synagogue in Poland, 1535, and is a place of religious significance. After a wander round the cemetery, we set off again to find another synagogue but got waylaid when we happened on the original village are if Kazimierz. An absolute gem. There we found a Jewish restaurant and immediately booked a table for dinner. You can see the photos of the original shop fronts below. Now we went on a search for donuts. Once more, we 8failed but enjoyed delicious hot chocolate and shared a very yummy cherry pastry!!
Our steps turned to the river. We crossed the river to visit Heroes Square. Below are pictures of the square. You will see there are chairs in the square. These represent all the goods and furniture left as the people were herded from their homes to the transport. There is also an interesting Apteka near the Square just as it was during occupation.. We now set off to find Schindlers Factory. Got slightly lost but made it eventually. It was not what either of us expected. The factory has been turned into Museum history of the Nazi Occuation of Krakow and etc. Interesting, not exactly, more informative and challenging. A walk back to the hotel where we collapsed until 6.30pm, when we went off to enjoy our Jewish meal accompanied by live traditional Jewish music on violin and accordion. A lovely finish to our holiday.Read more
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Trip end
February 9, 2026

Place Nowy Krakow

Auschwitz - Birkenau

Krakow old Town

KAZIMIERZ, SCHINDLERS FAC