The Benroecks survived loved Poland!

We took a train from Warsaw to Krakow and enjoyed our stay there immensely. Krakow is a wonderfully old city with confusing streets and delicious food and lots of old churches and things to see… It’s the perfect city to get lost in, per se. (You can’t really get lost, though… it’s fairly small).

Highlights:

• Visiting Auschwitz. I’m so glad we made the side trip to see this concentration camp / museum for a day. It was such a moving experience to see everything I had read about in history books first-hand. While it wasn’t necessarily ‘fun’, it was an essential sight to see, and only about an hour’s drive from Krakow. We used a private touring company to get there and back (as well as for the guided tour of the sites) and I’m very, very glad we did it that way instead of attempting to get around on our own via public transit.

_{Translation: Work will set you free.}

• Eating all of the things. EVERYTHING is in a buttery cream sauce, I swear! I was a little nervous about Polish food, but I seriously couldn’t get enough.

• Touring Kazimierz (Jewish Quarter of Krakow) with a free walking tour and learning about the Jewish community and WWII and all interesting things.

• Wandering around Wawel Castle, which was beautiful and well-worth a short uphill hike.

_{My love and I on the Wawel Castle grounds.}

• Perusing Schindler’s Factory Museum. You know the movie ‘Schindler’s List’? Well, there’s an entire museum based on Schindler and the Nazi Occupation. It’s a wonderful museum and we could have gotten lost in it for hours watching the videos and reading all of the signs (which were in English). Unfortunately, we went around closing time and it had to be a bit of a rushed experience… otherwise I’d probably still be in there! I love museums. (Yep, total nerd over here.)

• Exploring Main Market Square, which was especially bustling given that it was the weekend before Easter and the vendors were out and active! So much meat and delicious ‘street’ food….

_{This looks delicious, even to a vegetarian!}

• Homemade vodka tasters at the end of each meal. Have you ever tried mint vodka?! It’s awesome.

• Walking around the Planty, which is a park today, but used to be a moat. The Husband was sooooo excited that he got to ‘see’ a moat. I don’t ask questions.

• Afternoons spent enjoying hot chocolate. And by ‘hot chocolate’ I mean chocolate done the right way… basically melted chocolate that needs to be eaten with a spoon. Poland does their beverages right.

_{Gratuitous picture of me and Bumpy! I look a little squinty, but Bumpy is looking great in pink, if I do say so myself.}

Our overall impressions of Poland were that the food was great, the cities (Warsaw and Krakow) were walkable, the people were friendly, the sights were interesting, everything was cheaper than it is in the States, and we had a blast spending some time together and learning lots and lots of new things!

Now we’re onto the next adventure… Budapest, Hungary!

Wish us luck…

Cheers!

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