On a very wintery weekend!
| Holiday Ratings | |
| Recommended days | 3 |
| Budget | £ |
| Difficulty | Easy |
Our Tour
This Krakow city break was booked as a package tour with Broadway Travel. We had been getting their emails for a while but this was the first break we booked with them. Organisation was excellent and we certainly had all the information we needed.
The hotel was a little dated and not in the old centre but it was a couple of minutes walk from a tram stop. The package also included a trip to Auschwitz in the £129 cost. Next time we revisited was rather more expensive but we stayed in the heart of the old town, details here.
Kracow
Krakow is an old capital of Poland and a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s also the bishopric of Pope John Paul II and apparently has the largest medieval square in Europe.
The weather was abysmal for the first two days with non stop rain – so the photos were taken from undercover or with much swearing! It was easy to walk around the city and there were plenty of cafes and restaurants to shelter in.
We stopped in the cafe in the centre of the market square which had a delightful art noveau interior and it was a excellent value considering the premium location.
Church of St Mary 
Church of St Mary 
Church of St Mary 
Barbican 
Florian Gate 
Church of St Mary
Krakow at Night
On the third evening as the weather was clear and dry so we went out for a long walk. The square was lovely at night and in the dry – touristy but appealing. It goes without saying I didn’t have my tripod so the night shots aren’t that good. The fire breathing dragon was discovered by chance and was quite a spectacular sight!
Auschwitz
In some ways it was a shame that the best weather of our trip was on the day we visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. It was difficult to get an idea of a million lives being ended when there was blue sky overhead. There was no birdsong although I didn’t feel any ‘atmosphere’ to the place.
The guide was excellent but I did feel the tour went on too long and tried to reinforce a Jewish monopoly on suffering. I’d have liked to know more about the reasons for Hitler’s pathological hatred of the Jews, which was shared to a greater or lesser extent by a large part of Europe at the time.
Birkenau
Anyway, worth seeing just to get an idea of the scale of the numbers. The site is massive, especially Birkenau with row after row of wooden huts. This was murder on an industrial scale.
We didn’t see everything we wanted to see in the Old Town but it’s nice to have a reason to go back somewhere. It is a beautiful city and ridiculously cheap compared to the UK. A Krakow city break is fantastic value but March weather is obviously a bit of a gamble!
2016