Hankins in Hannover: Cracked Out in Krakow

The weekend before last was the first of two four-day weekends in May thanks to Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day) when I trekked to Krakow, Poland with Jordan and Jackie. I decided that the theme of our trip, and also a good t-shirt idea, would be "Cracked Out in Krakow."

After my Wednesday morning seminar, I packed up and headed to Berlin to spend the afternoon with Jackie and Jordan before we left for Poland early the next morning. Even though the distance from Berlin to Krakow is roughly the same as Berlin to Munich, trains are a bit slower in Poland and the journey takes twice as long (or about ten hours). That's a heck of a train ride.

Krakow was really a blast though and even though it rained almost the entire time we were there, it has now firmly cemented itself near the top of the list of my favorite cities in Europe. Our trip to Krakow can really be summarized in a few bullet points:

1) Old Krakow (Old Market Square and Wawel Castle) is beautiful mix of structures from the middle ages to the present.

2) Auschwitz was one of the largest groups of concentration/death camps created by the Nazis about 60 km west of Krakow. Approximately 1.3 million people were believed to have been killed here including about 1.1 million people of Jewish descent.

3) Polish food is hearty fare and nothing washes down pierogies better than a huge mug of surprisingly good Polish beer.

4) The Wieliczka Salt Mine was first opened in the 13th Century and now is over 300 km long though our tour was only about 3 km long. This was probably the kitchiest and funniest tour I've done in Europe and includes huge carved statues of people from Goethe to Pope John Paul II (from Krakow) to gnomes to Copernicus to Jesus.

5) Nightlife in Krakow is pretty awesome--we managed to find a few cool student bars in the old Jewish Quarter and some pretty rockin' clubs and parties closer to the center of Krakow (did I mention the Polish beer?).