Malopolska, the little Poland

Poland at last, a trip I've been chasing for years, with the main aim of going to Auschwitz, which I've always read and studied about. We were supposed to be 5, in the end we were 4, all women and of three generations: my daughter, my mother and a friend of my own age. We found a good price from Ciampino and on both flights we travelled with 30 minutes less than expected: but maybe Ryan pads the schedules to always look ahead of time?! I'm starting to wonder! Again through the website I booked the shuttle for €10 each return, punctual and precise compared with the times sent to me by email. I know taxis cost €20 and the train should also take you into the city; we were happy as it was, and these shuttles arrive at the bus station, next to the railway station and immediately outside that sort of elongated cell that is Kraków's old town, Stare Miasto.

On the whole, gathering data from other travel accounts and without too many comparisons, we spoiled ourselves a bit and I booked as many as 3 fully organised trips from home, without paying anything in advance, with Cracow City Tour, also encouraged by the fact that my daughter, who isn't 16 yet, enjoyed very big discounts. Perhaps, given how cheap life in Poland is, we didn't pay little, but by our standards we did (about €35 for Auschwitz and the same for the Salt Mine, a trip of about 6 hours organised perfectly and with Italian-speaking guides). For sleeping we stayed at the Flower Hostel about 600 metres from the market square, via booking as always, a room with an external bathroom but ours alone, breakfast and kitchen use for €75 each for 6 nights.

Again following various tips, we didn't change money into Zloty, a currency worth about 24 euro cents, at the airport, but at one of the many Kantor, that is the exchange offices found in the city, which however should be compared a bit, because they give different prices, with their profit margin already included. I had read that using our Postepay is worthwhile, because there are no extra charges: I did it on the last day and then saw that some applied a surcharge, and how! To eat we made a common kitty, which worked very well, and, although it's true everything costs much less than at home (including McDonald's!) you need to look at prices a bit and choose before going in.

We ate more than once at the pub/self-service, where you pay by weight, on ulica Grodzka, the street that from the Market Square, Rynek Główny, goes down to Wawel Castle, just as it begins from the square on the left side, slightly before a Doner Kebab. Very cheap, fast and, above all, you see with your own eyes what you're getting..more or less.

We had pierogi only once, not finding them exciting; we tasted excellent melted goat's cheese served with berries, strange and excellent warm mixed-grain salads, warm soups, various kinds of meat, excellent beers, and finally we even had lunch with zapiekanka, sandwiches as big as half a large baguette, topped with all imaginable things of your choice and heated up! Tasty, cheap and super-filling! Not to mention that now and then we also treated ourselves to a tub of berries! As for the trips and things to do, the city is full of agencies and free guided services, where only a tip is then required, except that many of these don't offer the service in Italian, so we had to miss out.

It's full of very well-kept white horse-drawn carriages pulled by decorated horses, as are their owners, I believe cheap, because they always had tourists on board! It's also full of little electric mini-trains with audio guides, and with these too you have to negotiate..we did the tour of the Jewish quarter (Kazimierz), the ghetto and the Schindler Factory, which we decided not to visit. The contraption was all ours; when the audio guide fell silent, I pestered our very friendly driver Patrick with questions in English; we saw glimpses of a vast area we would never have found, we had 2-3 stops of our choice where we visited synagogues and churches, we rested, we were finally dropped off where we chose, and, in short, we were extremely satisfied.

At Wawel Castle, made up rather of a jumble of styles, which you then get used to, there are many separate tickets not combinable into a single better price, for the many different things you decide to see: we, knowing that the city ultimately doesn't offer that many attractions, saw everything for a total of about €20 and didn't regret it. We spent many hours in the area and the only visit with a compulsory guide, and therefore with a time assigned by them, in the Royal Apartments, somewhat determined all the others, including the one to the beautiful Cecilia Gallerani, the Lady with an Ermine, by our great Leonardo.

Beautiful is the Royal Cathedral where the Kings were crowned. The only flaw: the signage in the castle area isn't at all clear, and this wastes time...and energy! In the city the fundamental part is made up of the very numerous churches, mainly Baroque, but fortunately for my tastes also Gothic, among which the Cathedral of Santa Maria in the market square stands out above all, in polychrome Gothic also enriched by a fantastic altarpiece. It's worth climbing the Town Hall tower and visiting the former cloth market, a beautiful structure that now houses many tidy souvenir stalls, located in the same square. A gigantic square, it seems to be the largest of medieval origin in Europe, measuring a full 200 square metres and the true heart of the city.

From here, to the south you go to the castle and to the north towards the Florianska gate, the last surviving one of the city, with its roughly 70 metres of ancient walls still standing, and beyond, to the strange octagonal structure of the Barbican, the city's defensive bastion with walls up to 3 metres thick.

Auschwitz, which I had so looked forward to, was in some way disappointing, because it was too crowded and chaotic and so “beautiful” as to make you forget what had happened there not so many decades ago. Great emotion was given to me by the mountain of hair and the photos of some naked women taken after their liberation, to show how reduced they were. Of this I felt ashamed more than anything, and I continue to feel a deep, dull anger at the mere thought of having raised my eyes to the infamy they continued to wear.

Birkenau, a separate part of the same camp, immediately moved me greatly: very few people, distant trees, wooden rather than brick barracks, the track that, before STOPPING, splits in two, and we stood there in the middle imagining their arrival, with their things and their bundles, because the damned had told them to bring them along as they would be needed, and the German doctors waiting to separate them..women, men, children, gas chambers. Here shame and anguish completely overwhelmed me. Did we grasp the scale? No, absolutely not. I had deluded myself that I would understand more. Perhaps that's where my disappointment lies.

The Salt Mine is something grand and unique; you reach it by descending about 700 steps and you visit only 1% of it, that is only 2.5 km! Instead of going to Czestochowa, we chose to spend a day in the Tatra mountains at Zakopane, again in the company of Alessandra, the friendly Polish guide from the agency already met at the mine the day before. Here we had little luck with the rain that accompanied us for half a day, not allowing us to fully enjoy the place, which is also a bit too touristy, but populated only by Poles, who go up