10 things we love about Krakow, Poland

1.    The people, as soon as we hopped off the train we had an old man come up and give us directions to get out of the station....initial instincts were to tell him to go away because we weren't giving him any money, but he just wanted to help. The people here are so quiet and reserved but are more than willing to help you when needed. It's a humbling place to be.

2.    Pierogi- delicious polish dumplings that we practically lived off here. Filled with meat, cabbage, mushrooms, spinach or cheese they are delicious! There is even a 24 hour pierogi take away that came in handy at 4am after a big night out.

3.    Wodka- As soon as we reached our hostel we were greeted with......a shot of polish wodka, mad dog style. A mad dog shot is vodka, grenadine and Tabasco sauce. Yep- welcome to Poland!

4.    Greg and Toms- this was the hostel we stayed in and it was fantastic. It is owned by two polish guys who live in the same apartment building as the hostel but it is run by young polish uni students. The hostel provides breakfast and dinner and organises everything you want, including vodka tasting nights! Seems that the word about how great this hostel is has travelled around Australia as 90% of the people staying there were Aussie. We made so many really great friends here and felt very much at home with our hostel family. Thanks melly.

5.    Z and j- yep the polish love their z's and j's and with the surname like Dziubinski we were feeling much at home (know exactly what u mean now mel). We loved searching for all the names we knew and found much joy in finding Jerzy, Yurek, Agnieska..... :)

6.   Cheap shopping- enough said! From clothes to food to cute souvenirs it is ridiculously cheap compared to the rest of Europe. A little dangerous.

7.   Medieval history and architecture- Krakow has a rich history with their architecture that dates back to at least the 10th century. There is one big castle just down from the main square that overlooks most of the city. The tale of the town dragon originates here and if you walk around the base of the castle you will find the dragon's cave. There is a statue of a dragon outside the cave which breathes fire ever couple of minutes. Pretty cool! The castle is beautiful and although in Europe you can get over looking at the billions of castles and old churches this one just seemed to stand out. I found myself setting my mind back to the day when it would have been the centre point of the town and people would have busily been walking around the cobble stone paths telling tales of the dangerous dragon that lay beneath the castle to their children. Besides the castle Krakow has some really nice buildings such as St. Mary's church in the city square and the walls that still remain standing around the boundary of the old town square.

8.    Auschwitz- what a terrible history this place holds. We actually got back from here today and are still very much disturbed by the atrocities we heard about. The tours that run here are really good. It consists of visiting two of the concentration camp sites. You can see where the prisoners of the nazis were kept, what their living conditions were like, the gas chambers and crematorium. It is an incredibly moving place. It is absolutely unbelievable to hear some of the stories that the tour guides tell you. They have displays of the prisoner's belongings that came to the camp. Thinking they were being relocated to a different living area most of them had packed their most treasures belongings. As soon as they arrived their suitcases where snatched off them and tossed into a pile to be sorted through, never to be touched by them again. They had on display thousands of spectacles taken from those that were gased, as well of millions of shoes and even thousands of kilos of hair that they had cut off all of the prisoners to be sold back to textile shops to make rugs and nets. Had to take a moment when we came to a display of kids clothes and the stories that went them. Any child under the age of 15 was sent to the gas chamber upon arrival, as well as their mother and anyone else that was deemed unable to work for the nazi government at the camp. Those that were selected for work probably wished they had been killed though as the living conditions were so inhumane. What a scary time it would have been for those people arriving at the concentration camp trying to piece together what was happening and why......all because of a name they had been given! Hopefully the millions of visitors to this place keep this history alive and always remember the atrocities that happened and realise how important it is for equality within our world.

9.    Christmas markets- on a lighter note we caught the last night of Christmas markets here. I'm a sucker for markets at home so poor scott got dragged along the rows of handcraft Christmas decorations, babushka dolls and chocolate stalls. I don't think he minded it too much though with polish kransky to keep him happy ;)

10.    Snow- we had been hoping that along with the cold temperatures here that we would also be greeted with snow, yet this wasn't the case. As cold as we thought it was it wasn't cold enough to snow. However on our second night we headed out with some friends we had made for a night of polish vodka drinking and at 3am we saw out first snow fall. I was so excited I screamed and scott and i ran out onto the street, dancing around. Our Canadian friend could not believe we were so excited about 'snow' but to see it falling for the sky and hitting the light of the street lamps was the most beautiful sight we had seen!

This list could go on but we'll leave it there. We basically wanted to get the point across that Poland is a fantastic place to come and visit. We don't want to leave but need to catch our train to Prague to tonight so it is goodbye to Krakow, for now.