We arrived in Krakow, Poland after an overnight flight with our friends, The Jettners (from South Africa/Saudi/Michigan). As a special Christmas treat, Justin hired a limo for a surprise and the group drove around town in style, sipping champagne. We ended at the Christmas Market in the main square, a village of stalls basked in Christmas lights across a square smelling of roasted meat, mulled wine, and with every trinket imaginable. After getting our fill of food, drink, and shopping, we headed out for a Mexican dinner, perfect for Poland.
Day 2 dawned with a trip to Park Wodny, an indoor waterpark. We then celebrated Ari's birthday by going to a natural history museum (some live animals), and dinner at the recommended Del Papa. The next day we visited the Rynek Underground, a museum of a partially preserved medieval city under the town square. Our evening capped off with a trip to Maze Krakow, an exciting role-playing game where you are locked in a room. You have 1 hour to find a bomb, disable it, and get out of the room. Using clues and items in the room, you must unlock doors, enter codes, and find secrets. It was like being in National Treasure.
Auschwitz was a haunting day. Sarah and I left the kids back and went on a tour, learning all about the atrocities of what people can do. We saw whole rooms of luggage, shoes, pots, glass, and combs collected from victims. The most disturbing was the one with human hair (no pictures allowed). More than a million people were killed at Auschwitz, and many of those at the largest camp Birkenau. We elected to skip this second and more graphic portion of the tour having been distressed enough by what we already had seen. As the Nazis destroyed all of the gas chambers hoping to cover evidence in the final days of the war, we only saw a reconstructed crematorium. Many women, children, and the elderly all arrived by trains after days of cramped, cold travel and were told they were going to shower. Instead they were gassed to death. After walking around, we decided that these people were perhaps the lucky ones, as the survivors were subjected to horrible work conditions, malnourishment, medical experiments, and torture before eventually scumming to conditions, disease, starvation, or execution. Pictures shows people surviving perhaps 2-3 years like this, but many dying within 1-3 months. It was an atrocity never to be repeated.
Aside from many trips to the Christmas Market, we also found some great places to enjoy a beverage. Beer Gallery is a fun little place with lots of Belgian beers. Another amazing place we found was the House of Beer with a display wall of bottles acting as a menu. On a chance, we passed by the T.E.A. Time Brewery which sported a fun bar above an underground tavern. For another taste of the microbrew scene we headed to C.K. Brower, a cool looking bar with about 5 beers of their own. I have to say, we were quite impressed with the level of craft brews in Poland. Another exciting option is the Wodka Cafe Bar. With more than 100 types of vodka on hand, you can sample any number of them for very cheap. Good luck.
On the way out of town we checked out the Wieliczka Saltmine, an underground network of caves carved out by 100+ years of mineral mining. While the history was exciting, perhaps the highlight was the girls being able to lick every wall in the place. We headed south to the mountains to visit Zakopane, Poland's Winter Capital. Unfortunately, there was no snow. That did not stop us from doing everything we wanted, just a bit abridged. Our base was the beautiful Aprtament Glaumor 1, one of the better places we have found on booking.com. Hitting the outdoors, skating is skating, and public rinks have bad ice no matter what. But when you get to do it with the mountains as a backdrop, it really doesn't matter the weather. We also went dog sledding. With no snow, we actually went dog carting. After meeting the dogs and getting to play with them a bit, we learned all about them. Then the dogs were hooked up to a cart and we took turns going around a small track with them pulling.
A similar experience was our trip on a horse-drawn sleigh. Large carts were pulled by horses and we ventured into the woods at night, Many stars glistened overhead and we stopped at the halfway point to have a drink - tea with vodka. We carted back, sipping wine from bottles and keeping warm, until we reached a lodge. Nestled into a wood cabin with sausages roasted over a fire, we were entertained by traditionally dressed men playing instruments around the fire pit.
Skiing was in serious jeopardy with the weather but bits of machine-made snow coated the lower slopes of the hill, enough for a few days of ski lessons for the girls. By the final day, Taelyn was going up and down on her own. We also found some sleds and hit the slops for good winter fun. While it wasn't ideal to miss out on snow at Christmas, we really lucked out by not having weather that was too cold to stop us from doing outdoor activities.
On the way home we had a long layover in Berlin. We embarked on a whirlwind tour, heading over to Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, and the Berlin Wall.
Day 2 dawned with a trip to Park Wodny, an indoor waterpark. We then celebrated Ari's birthday by going to a natural history museum (some live animals), and dinner at the recommended Del Papa. The next day we visited the Rynek Underground, a museum of a partially preserved medieval city under the town square. Our evening capped off with a trip to Maze Krakow, an exciting role-playing game where you are locked in a room. You have 1 hour to find a bomb, disable it, and get out of the room. Using clues and items in the room, you must unlock doors, enter codes, and find secrets. It was like being in National Treasure.
Auschwitz was a haunting day. Sarah and I left the kids back and went on a tour, learning all about the atrocities of what people can do. We saw whole rooms of luggage, shoes, pots, glass, and combs collected from victims. The most disturbing was the one with human hair (no pictures allowed). More than a million people were killed at Auschwitz, and many of those at the largest camp Birkenau. We elected to skip this second and more graphic portion of the tour having been distressed enough by what we already had seen. As the Nazis destroyed all of the gas chambers hoping to cover evidence in the final days of the war, we only saw a reconstructed crematorium. Many women, children, and the elderly all arrived by trains after days of cramped, cold travel and were told they were going to shower. Instead they were gassed to death. After walking around, we decided that these people were perhaps the lucky ones, as the survivors were subjected to horrible work conditions, malnourishment, medical experiments, and torture before eventually scumming to conditions, disease, starvation, or execution. Pictures shows people surviving perhaps 2-3 years like this, but many dying within 1-3 months. It was an atrocity never to be repeated.
Aside from many trips to the Christmas Market, we also found some great places to enjoy a beverage. Beer Gallery is a fun little place with lots of Belgian beers. Another amazing place we found was the House of Beer with a display wall of bottles acting as a menu. On a chance, we passed by the T.E.A. Time Brewery which sported a fun bar above an underground tavern. For another taste of the microbrew scene we headed to C.K. Brower, a cool looking bar with about 5 beers of their own. I have to say, we were quite impressed with the level of craft brews in Poland. Another exciting option is the Wodka Cafe Bar. With more than 100 types of vodka on hand, you can sample any number of them for very cheap. Good luck.
On the way out of town we checked out the Wieliczka Saltmine, an underground network of caves carved out by 100+ years of mineral mining. While the history was exciting, perhaps the highlight was the girls being able to lick every wall in the place. We headed south to the mountains to visit Zakopane, Poland's Winter Capital. Unfortunately, there was no snow. That did not stop us from doing everything we wanted, just a bit abridged. Our base was the beautiful Aprtament Glaumor 1, one of the better places we have found on booking.com. Hitting the outdoors, skating is skating, and public rinks have bad ice no matter what. But when you get to do it with the mountains as a backdrop, it really doesn't matter the weather. We also went dog sledding. With no snow, we actually went dog carting. After meeting the dogs and getting to play with them a bit, we learned all about them. Then the dogs were hooked up to a cart and we took turns going around a small track with them pulling.
A similar experience was our trip on a horse-drawn sleigh. Large carts were pulled by horses and we ventured into the woods at night, Many stars glistened overhead and we stopped at the halfway point to have a drink - tea with vodka. We carted back, sipping wine from bottles and keeping warm, until we reached a lodge. Nestled into a wood cabin with sausages roasted over a fire, we were entertained by traditionally dressed men playing instruments around the fire pit.
Skiing was in serious jeopardy with the weather but bits of machine-made snow coated the lower slopes of the hill, enough for a few days of ski lessons for the girls. By the final day, Taelyn was going up and down on her own. We also found some sleds and hit the slops for good winter fun. While it wasn't ideal to miss out on snow at Christmas, we really lucked out by not having weather that was too cold to stop us from doing outdoor activities.
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On the way home we had a long layover in Berlin. We embarked on a whirlwind tour, heading over to Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, and the Berlin Wall.
