I wanted to visit Krakow for a number of reasons. When planning my Watson, I thought I might spend time exploring LGBT culture in smaller towns along the way, but as I quickly heard from almost every LGBT person in Warsaw, it's extremely difficult to do in Poland without really digging into a place and even then, still not easy. Additionally, I was eager to spend as much time as possible getting to know Warsaw and all it had to offer so side trips did not end up being as frequent as I had originally imagined. Maybe this will be different in Argentina but I am happy with how things have worked in Poland.
Back to the trip, Krakow is the second biggest city, half the size of Warsaw, so I thought it might be easier to find LGBT life there. Wrong. There were a few resources online but almost all of them were shut down or totally inactive. I managed to find one bar that seemed to organize things semi-regularly, but although I tried to get in touch, there was never a response and it was not easy to find in the city. This was disappointing but not wholly unexpected. I spoke to two other travelers on the bus to Budapest who told me that they had ventured and managed to find two gay bars but they were both almost empty. It is possible that this is because it's summertime and almost everyone is on holiday at one point or another. It's true at the KPH and was true of both organizations that emailed me back from Budapest. While it's the season of Pride, it's also the season of vacations and slow political life. It's also absolutely true that I would need much more than the time I stopped in the city to really try to find and get to know LGBT life.
Nice message on one of the main streets of the Krakow city center
Although it was not easy to find LGBT resources, I was happy to explore another Polish city and to spend a few days seeing and doing some amazing and eye-opening things, from walking through streets that were hundreds of years old to touring a salt mine that was once responsible for a third of Poland's wealth to visiting Auschwitz.
In a happy coincidence, I was traveling to Krakow on the same day as two other people from the Oki Doki, Chris and Laura, so we took the train together, although we ended up at different hostels once there. We met for dinner and drinks in the city market at the end of our first day and explored Krakow at night. It was very pretty and lots of fun. There were break dancers and we ended up in a bar with live music, which more often than not was a sing-along with the crowd there. I spoke to some really nice Australians from Perth in between a round of "Proud Mary" and "Wonderwall."
The hostel where I stayed, Greg and Tom's Beer Hostel, is one of a chain in the city and was very nice. It's new and things are clean and work well, but it was so hot that it was basically impossible to sleep beyond 8 in the morning. The room was nice but lacked a fan and we all felt it. It's called the Beer Hostel because it's attached to a restaurant and pub, which made it really easy to get to know people (but also more difficult to sleep, although it was still a great place to stay). Dinner was included each night, and it was really good. Everyone was happy for that and the buffet was perfect for meeting other travelers. I met lots of nice folks at Greg and Tom's. I am especially thankful to have met Rachael, Rebecca, Cutter, and Brian, all fantastic.
On my first day, I toured the Salt Mines, which I did not know existed prior to visiting Poland. We took a bus to Wielickza, a small city about a half hour outside of Krakow, and went with a guide to the first three levels of the salt mines, which include exhibits on the history of mining, statues carved of salt, multiple chapels, and long tunnels with wooden supports dating back hundreds of years. The salt mines are around 700 years old, and there are 6 levels beyond the first three, although the bottom is now cut off due to a flood. The mine continues to produce salt out of necessity instead of for profit now that the price of salt has gone down so much. In order to preserve the mines, a UNESCO World Heritage sight, it is necessary to keep them in working order. Underground it's cool and kept at humidity levels meant to make sure everything is in good condition. It was great on a hot day.
We walked 54 flights down to the mine, although there is an elevator back up, thankfully.
Walls of the mine and a salty ceiling.
Walking on a floor carved of salt.
One of the caverns. Apparently the salt gets into the wood and prevents rot and also makes it much more difficult to burn.
For Meems! Copernicus statue. He visited the mines and is Polish. Mimi and I had a fish named Copernifish, may he rest in peace.
Salt stalagmites.
Walking the old cart tracks. They used to keep horses down in the mines because it was too costly to bring them up and down all the time. They helped to work the pulleys to transport the salt and to carry carts and loads through the tunnels.
Salt on the walls.
One of the underground lakes with salt carvings of the legends of the mines.
One of the chapels.
Another of the underground lakes. The air in the mines is supposed to be very good for respiratory issues, and children with issues will sometimes come to the mines to relax and breathe the air. Like the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, it would be impossible to sink here.
The oldest legend of Krakow involves the slaying of a dragon who lived under Wawel castle. Supposedly, this is his brother, who lived in the mines.
Down one of the tunnels. I'm in the dark at the end there.
Because why not.
In one of the larger chambers. The chandeliers were all made of salt as well.
The largest underground chapel in the world.
Salt chandelier.
Salt John Paul II
Salt Last Supper
The day after the Salt Mines, I went to Auschwitz. The hostel booked organized tours to go see the concentration camp, so I took a bus with Cutter, a really nice guy in my room at the hostel, and a bunch of other people coming from Krakow. The ride to the camp is about an hour, and they showed us a film about Auschwitz on the way. We met our tour guide at the front of the building; guides are compulsory so that people aren't just roaming the site. She led us through Auschwitz, the original camp, through buildings and barracks and into one of the gas chambers.
The gates at Auschwitz
Auschwitz was chosen to be a site of the concentration camp because it was located near the meeting point of two major Polish rivers, was fairly remote, and was easy to access by train. It began as one camp, Auschwitz, and expanded from there to include two other sites.
The barracks are full of exhibits now. We saw many of the things that prisoners were forced to abandon or that were taken upon their death. Much like in the Holocaust Museum in D.C., there are piles of suitcases, shoes, hair, and other belongings. At that point in the tour, it was the glasses that got to me. I'm not sure why, exactly, but when I looked at the small room full of glasses, I had to stop for a minute. Ultimately, the whole visit was full of moments like that, but the glasses were the start.
One of the guard towers
We saw barracks with designated purposes. One for executions and political prisoners. The windows of the building next door were blocked so that other prisoners could not see what was happening at the "death wall" that stood in between, but everyone knew anyway. After a farce of a trial, various offenders would be executed. In the basement, they starved some and forced others to work themselves to death, placing four men in a room no bigger than a bathroom stall and working them all day before returning them to a place where sleep would be impossible. Another barracks was for medical experimentation. Untold women were sterilized there.
The barbed wire
We walked through the gas chamber, one of the smaller ones that stands not 100 yards from the house of the commander at the camp. His family lived there, his wife and five children, one of whom was born at Auschwitz.
After Auschwitz I, we took the bus to Birkenau, which dwarfs the first part of the camp. Cabin after cabin after cabin filled the fields and multiple gas chambers, now rubble, stood at the back.
At Birkenau. The remains of cabins. The size of Birkenau was beyond anything that I'd imagined. It's massive.
The train stop at Birkenau
It was a really hot day in Krakow, and they cut the tour of Birkenau short because the museum didn't want to be responsible for anyone getting heat stroke. Standing inside one of the cabins meant for prisoners, it was difficult to imagine how 600 people withstood weather that made it difficult for even 50 of us to be in the room together.
There were separate cabins for latrines, but prisoners could only visit those once in the morning an once in the evening, and they only had thirty seconds, at best. Sometimes the soldiers would make a game of it, counting to ten to force the prisoners out quickly. The prisoners were given somewhere around 1000 calories a day, which was nowhere near enough to sustain them, especially given the labor they were forced to do. Originally, Auschwitz was full of Polish prisoners and was meant to be a Polish camp. Those who arrived were not supposed to survive more than three months. As the camp expanded to include different kinds of prisoners, the processes and standards changed, and Auschwitz became a primary site for the execution of the final solution.
The visit to Auschwitz was horrifying but educational. The tour leader did a good job of helping us to understand the reality of the lives of the prisoners without making it something sensational, something from which we could really distance ourselves. It's incomprehensible but it was also an invaluable learning experience. Walking through Birkenau, especially, forced me to consider the enormity of something that I had studied and read about but never had to face in that way.
The next day, I took a walking tour of Krakow. The city is beautiful, much smaller than Warsaw and much older. The Nazis chose to settle here rather than to bomb, so unlike in Warsaw, there are still many buildings dating back hundreds of years.
The market square
One of the streets leading off from the market square. The city is beautiful.
Krakow Opera House
The city gates. This is the only original piece left standig. Our guide told us that the architect convinced the city planners that it must remain if all the other pieces were destroyed because it stopped the wind from blowing up the dresses of the women on the way to the church down the street.
The barbican just outside the city gates.
The church in the center of the town square. Like in Warsaw. there is a trumpeter who playes every day, but this one plays every hour.
The trumpeter. There is no elevator, so he climbs all the way to the top of the tower and sits for his 8 hour shift. He stops in the middle of the anthem that he's playing, which is a tradition that nobody fully understands. He plays in three different directions.
The market at the city center.
Topped with scary faces.
Grrrr.
The church from a different perspective.
The house of the archbishop. It's John Paul II's photo in the window above the door there. He lived here and would talk to the people from the window. He did the same when he was Pope and returned for a visit.
Wawel Cathedral.
The symbol of Poland, a white eagle.
In front of the Wawel Castle, which dates back to the 14th century, although people have been living on the Wawel hill for thousands of years.
The legend of the Wawel Dragon is very old, and the castle and cathedral both have dragons worked into their design in some place. As it goes, there was a dragon that lived beneath Wawel Hill and terrorized the countryside. He took young women as sacrifices, but when it came the King's turn to sacrifice his own daughter, he begged for anyone to kill the dragon and save her, promising great rewards and his daughter's hand in marriage. Every knight failed to defeat the dragon. One day, a cobbler came along and stuffed a sheep with sulfur, leaving it outside the dragon's den. The dragon ate the sheep but became unbearably thirsty, drinking all the water from the Vistula River, which runs next to the castle. The dragon exploded and the cobbler became a prince. Now green dragons with yellow bellies are common souvenirs in Krakow.
The old church in the market square, which dates back almost a thousand years.
"Don't Panic" on the way to do some laundry. Much appreciated reminder.
This week I'm particularly thankful for:
1. Rachael and Rebecca, who are fabulous.
2. Cutter and Brian.
3. The chance to see new things.
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