Krakow July 1-3

We took a night train from Budapest to Krakow. Super fun! We've never done a night train before but I loved it. You fall asleep in one city and wake up in another. It's great.

Our first day we saw the old city gate and the barbican, a fortified outpost that used to connect to the old city walls. We explored Rynek Glówny, the main market square and the Kosciot mariacki, St. Mary's church. It houses the biggest altar in Europe. 

After the church we walked around the old town and stopped at the milk pub Bar Mleczny "Pod Termida" for lunch. Milk pubs were started to give working class Polish an affordable place to go out to dinner after work. It is cafeteria style which is nice because then we could see what we were eating. We ate some delicious Polish dumplings with a meat sauce and a potato soup with sausage. Ben had a Skype interview during which I hung out a cafe and read my book. Afterwards we walked around the circular park, aka Planty and around the castle along the river. 

The next day we went to Auschwitz. Wow. (See separate post for Auschwitz.) 

Our last day we hung out at the hotel until check out because we were taking another night train and didn't want to be wandering the city all morning, afternoon and early evening. After we had to check out we tried to visit Waswel Hill but right before we got there they had evacuated the place because there had been a bomb threat! So we scooted along right quick to Schindler's Factory Museum which was far away from the hill. The museum was mostly about life in Krakow in the early 1940s which included a lot of information about Jews living there during that time. Quite interesting. Afterwards we were able to Skype my mom for a bit which was nice. For dinner we went back to Cyklop for the diavola pizza. The restaurant is run by an Italian man. It was the best diavola pizza I have ever eaten and while in Italy that was the only kind of pizza I ate. I would go back to Krakow just to eat that pizza again. After dinner it was time to head to the train station. 


St. Mary's church

Inside St. Mary's church

Lunch at the milk pub

Schindler's Factory Museum

A cigarette pouch made from human skin.

Schindler's desk 

A section of the wall that lists the names of the people he saved. 

A sample of the pots that were made at Schindler's factory.