Day 44 - Auschwitz Memorial & Museum

Today we got up early, had breakfast in the apartment to go to the bus station, we are off to see and pay respects to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

We got told yesterday the bus was at 7:25am, today the bus is now at 8:05am and gets us to Auschwitz at 9:19am… our tour starts at 9:30am, should be fine.
While waiting for the bus, I opted to buy an obwarzanek, it’s a bagel that the dough is boiled for 10seconds in 65degree water.
Then I decided to start googling, and no our bus gets in at 9:30am… So the bus trip was a wee bit panicky as we had a 6hour tour and they only do one a day. We got to Auschwitz at 9:35am, talked to the desk and we got escorted to our group thankfully, we only missed an 8 minute intro video.

We spent 3 hours in Auschwitz going through the blocks and exhibitions. As we were on the longer tour we got to see Block 3, the most untouched block showing the living conditions in the camp.
After a half n hour break we got on the bus to Auschwitz II-Birkenau which takes 10 minutes. We spent 2.5hours here on the grounds. Birkenau was mostly destroyed by the Nazi’s before liberation day and the old blocks torn down by returning locals, as the Nazi’s had destroyed their brick houses to build the Blocks, so the locals started using what was at Birkenau.

After the tour it was a bit too process what we had heard and seen, though our Polish guide spoke very fast which somewhat helped that we didn’t have enough time to fully comprehend exactly what we were being told at times.
We rode the bus back to Krakow, I was pretty exhausted so caught a nap while Katie decided to film me…

We got back to the apartment and got freshened up and headed for dinner. Another recommendation from the guide yesterday, Resyauracja Cechowa, another traditional restaurant. The food in Poland is amazing!

After dinner we walked through Market Square, stopping to watch the lightning around us light up the night sky. We got some gelato and went back to the accomodation.Read more