Day 2: Auschwitz and the Trail of the Eagle's Nest

Thanks to jet lag and a surprisingly early sunrise, I popped out of bed at 4:30 a.m. ready to go. (I'm a delight to travel with.) So, after a quick breakfast we were out the door for adventures. Out of order adventures, since I have once again uploaded the pictures totally without regard to sequence.

 

 

A wooden church from 1904 near a castle.

 

The tower pictured up to the right is Ojcow Castle, one of the castles on the Trail of the Eagle's Nest, which is a 101 mile stretch in Poland with 25 castles in various states of ruin. The castles protected the southern border of Poland, and this one was built in the second half of the fourteenth century. The tower is really all there is, but at $1.20 to get in I guess I can't complain too much (though my calves were screaming from the climb up there).

 

More impressive was Ogrodzieniec Castle, built in the 14th to 15th centuries and located high on a hill. It's rumored to be haunted by a black dog dragging a chain. We didn't see any ghost dogs, though we did see hordes of school children on field trips. European kids have way cooler field trips than American kids. There were also a lot of sweaty, half-naked Englishmen (unpictured) wearing wool hats and setting up medieval exhibits, I assume for something going on that weekend.

One exhibit at the castle was the torture chamber, with the cheery illustration below. The torture chamber also featured an Iron Maiden and a cage in which inmates were hung in the public square, so that townspeople could twirl them until they passed out.

 

 

More views of the castle.

An outcropping of rock beside the castle...these limestone rocks are from the Jurassic era.

 

This was also the day we visited Auschwitz, which is about an hour from Krakow by car. We got there early, since you have to arrive before 10 a.m. to be able to do the tour on your own rather than as a group. When we parked, the Polish parking attendant asked us if we could please speak Polish to him, as he was very tired and didn't feel like speaking English; unfortunately, we could not oblige him and he was forced to give us directions in the exhausting language of English.

 

Auschwitz does get VERY crowded, so we ended up leaving without seeing everything. What we did see was (of course) very sobering; it's almost impossible to grasp the suffering and murder that went on there, especially on a beautiful spring day when everything is green and the birds are singing. However, the exhibits help put it into perspective. One and a half million people were killed at Auschwitz, and on display are literal tons of human hair cut off the dead; piles of shoes from the victims, taller than Taylor and the length of an entire building down both sides; piles of prosthetics, and more.

 

Below are the "striped pajamas" the prisoners wore; this was a startling and unexpected sight as you came down the stairs.

 

The rows of brick housing at Auschwitz, surrounded by barbed wire.

 

The infamous sign, which translated means "work sets you free"--yet most people who passed under that gate never saw freedom. The camp orchestra used to play as the prisoners marched by at night, to keep them in step and make it easier to count them.

We also visited Birkenau, which was the extermination camp; the railroad tracks have been left in place, ending at a memorial to those murdered in the camp.

 



 

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but Birkenau was huge--the Nazis destroyed most of it when they realized they were losing the war, and all that's left are the chimneys across the fields, marking the barracks where the prisoners slept.

 

A watchtower at Birkenau.

 

The inside of one of the reconstructed barracks--built originally to hold 51 horses, it would hold 400 prisoners in the bunk beds. Though Auschwitz was very crowded, we were the only people on the grounds of Birkenau.

 

Taylor wasn't sure he wanted to go to Auschwitz, but given that it was so close to Krakow he decided we should; and really everyone should, to be a witness to what once happened. However, you can tell some others don't grasp the solemnity and horror--there were tour groups posing and taking pictures by the buildings and monuments like it was just another tourist attraction.

 

But moving on to something lighter...food. Having skipped lunch in favor of Doing All the Things (eating is for the weak!), we ate dinner in Krakow at Bomboniernka,

I had a tomato and avocado salad, pierogies with cream cheese and potato, and a spinach pancake smothered in delicious dill garlic sauce.

 

I also had a pear smothered in vanilla ice cream and cognac sauce...pear desserts are really underrated.

 



 

Final picture: some archery practice below the castle.