Photos from Poland

Poland

Hi
Well we finally have a digital camera so have decided to set up our own blog to let you know what we have been up to recently.

We've just got back from a week in Poland - Krakow and Zakopane - to be exact. It was fabulous. The weather was great, an extra week of summer for us and we enjoyed lots of sightseeing, walking, drinking extremely cheap beer, walking, mountain biking, walking and more eating and drinking. We did lots of walking... the city was really easy to get around and using public transport in a city where you don't speak the language and don't exactly know where it is you want to go can sometimes be a bit difficult. We managed ok though.
Krakow is a city with so much history and sadness attached to it that it was nice to be able to just wander the streets and look around you. For a previous communist country Poland seems to be moving forward with leaps and bounds. The city was so clean and we felt very safe there. While a bit run down in some places there was definitely a lot of work going on to regenerate it. Sometimes it feels like Glasgow has been stuck in communism for the past 30 years by the state that it's in!

We did lots of interesting things in Krakow including a trip to the Salt Mines which were pretty impressive. 135m underground and everything is made from salt, including the chapel! Made the legs a bit shakey climbing down the 300+ stairs but luckily there was a lift back to the top - although with 5 of us crammed into a lift that should realistically have only taken 3 people was a tad scary!
We also took a tour out to Auschwitz - Birkenau. This may seem a bit of a morbid sightseeing trip, but it was very worthwhile, we had a Polish tour guide who was really good and the whole place was very well done. I was expecting to be quite upset by the whole thing but I think because it was so tastefully done I was able to keep my emotions in check and where there were things I knew would upset me - piles of baby clothes - I just didn't make myself look. The most disturbing part was when we left Auschwitz and went down the road to Birkenau, it was just so big. I think that was what struck me the most and so quiet. It was a beautiful day and we just stood there at the ruins of the gas chambers and were silent and you couldn't hear a thing. Hard to imagine that there were once over a million people being kept prisoner there. A very moving experience and I would recommend it to everyone. While we were in Zakopane - a mountain ski resort we hired mountain bikes and did a bit of biking, however I wasn't very good and fell off twice leaving me with a big bruise on my bum and angry at Simon for making me do it! It wasn't all that bad though, the weather was so hot so once we got off the off road trails and back on the road I was much happier to be cruising along on a bike! It was our second time on bikes that trip as we did a bike tour of the city of Krakow which was cool. Rode around the city on cruiser push bikes and got to see so much more than on foot.

Anyway, so we are back from our holiday and are off again in 5 weeks to Berlin then for a week in December to Rome. Can't wait!! Have no idea how we are going to pay for these trips but we'll manage I'm sure... just don't anyone expect any Christmas presents this year!! :)

Here are some photos of our trip!