Krakow and Auschwitz tour from Warsaw

Wawel is a special place for the Poles which remains a symbol that has been connecting the whole nation for generations. Although Warsaw has been the capital of Poland for over 400 years now, there is no such place as Wawel. It is considered a symbol of royal power and an eyewitness to the birth of Polishness and its further formation. Towering over the city and looking from the limestone hill Wawel represents strength and significance of the country in its glory days. Initially, the castle had a wooden form and its stone walls started to be built in the 11th century, starting with the Rotunda of the Blessed Virgin Mary (what is now the chapel). For several centuries stone walls replaced the wooden ones, and after a fire in the 15th century, the Wawel castle was completely rebuilt. Today, you can admire its towers: Sandomierska, Senatorska, Złodziejska, Herbowa and Wazów, Sobieski's Tower or St. Leonard’s Crypt.

There are over 120 churches in Krakow most of which are hundreds-year-old historic buildings. In addition to the St. Mary's Church on the Main Market Square, you can spot the 14th-century buildings, the Church of Corpus Christi, the Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Margaret, Cathedral of St. Waclaw and St. Stanislawa, a series of churches from the 11th century and the older one built after the capital was moved. The city center itself is, without a doubt, the most important and the biggest square called the Main Market Square. You can admire Krakow Cloth Hall here, St. Mary’s Church, the Town Hall Tower, St. Wojciech’s Church and around 40 medieval tenement houses. Krakow Cloth Hall deserves special attention since it was the very first marketplace in the city’s history. The name comes from the cloth stalls built under the order of Boleslaw V the Chaste as a series of stone structures separated by streets. The object has taken on its present form after the reconstruction in the 16th century. The architect gave it a more artistic look by adding the arcaded attic and mascarons. The main square of Krakow is completed by the Small Market Square with a number of historic buildings. The city is still surrounded by what has remained of the defensive walls with the Barbican. Also, let us not forget about the famous Florian Gate and several preserved towers.

When in Krakow, you have to visit 70-kilometer away Oswięcim where the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp was used to be. In 1979, the camp was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a place associated with the Holocaust and mass genocide. Founded as a labor camp, it later became a place of terror and extermination. The first transport trains delivered political prisoners to Oswięcim in June 1940 what initiated regular transports of people from Poland and Europe. Initially it was intelligentsia, prisoners from other camps, captives and the greatest percentage of Jews. The purpose of the Camp was a massive and systematic process of destroying and consequently killing its prisoners. In 1941, in the village of Brzezinka, located about 3 km from the main Camp, the Nazis established a new camp called Auschwitz II Birkenau. In the years 1942-1945, about 1.5 million people were killed there. Most of them were Jews (90%), Poles, Gypsies, Russians and prisoners from 28 European countries; people of all nationalities, political and religious beliefs. After the war, the camp was transformed into a museum of genocide. There are several characteristic places in the camp where you can still feel the negative energy and death aura. These include: The main gate with the inscription ‘Arbeit Macht Frei - Work makes it free’, Block 10, where particularly cruel medical experiments took place, Block 11, known as the Death Block in which people were murdered under the ‘Wall of Death’ and in a gas chamber outside the camp (70,000 people were killed between 1940-1943). Currently, visitors have the opportunity to visit the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau camps and watch a film made after the camp was liberated which shows how horrifying and brutal of a place it used to be.