Top Krakow Day Trips

Since I was a child of five or six, I have always wanted to visit Europe and take a tour of major WWII and Holocaust sites. My mom was a middle school English teacher in Pasadena, and one of her colleagues and friends was a math teacher who was a concentration camp survivor. While he was not at Auschwitz and he never spoke to me about it, what very little my mom related stayed with me. My interest and desire to learn more increased when an Auschwitz survivor came to our middle school and spoke at an assembly about the same time our 8th grade English class was reading The Diary of Anne Frank. This was a powerful, but necessary and important experience for me--and a visit to this disturbing place of evil is essential. Too may people today claim the Holocaust did not happen or was not so bad. Seeing Auschwitz is concrete evidence that it did happen, it is required learning, and despite claims otherwise, it can happen again. We had an excellent bus driver and guide who got us situated to the camp, and then we had a superb guide whose grandfather had been a political survivor of Auschwitz--and his knowledge, insights, and expert knowledge made this a truly memorable tour. We walked all around the entire camp on a slightly breezy, chilly early summer day, but as the tour guide reminded us, the prisoners at Auschwitz were forced to endure far, far worse in brutal, freezing weather. I STRONGLY recommend the tour to Auschwitz as it is so important and an experience you will not easily brush off or forget. You have probably read about it, seen documentaries, and seen pictures of the camp. Being there in person is a completely different experience. I am not a "drinking man" kind of person, but once I returned to my hotel I needed a beer. I opted to take the Auschwitz tour the same day as the Salt Mines, so it made for an extremely long day. . . by the time I returned to Krakow I was definitely tired--and I am a high energy kind of individual. Nevertheless, I definitely enjoyed the tour of the Salt Mines. I learned a great deal, and honestly had zero idea there were so many beautiful salt carvings and art work there. In addition to the great carvings, I learned a lot about the history and importance of salt mining in Poland and throughout history. Our guide was very good, and one or two individuals in our group wondered aloud if he had been trained as a teacher. I strongly encourage you to take both of these tours, although not necessarily together as I did as it does make for a super long day with a lot of walking. I LOVE to walk--and so I was not bothered by the amount of walking, but we covered roughly 5 km. by the end of the day. If you are able to do only one, Auschwitz is so important you can't pass it up. Highly recommended day.