We’ll spend the morning of this day exploring Wroclaw’s
Old Town or the parts we couldn’t see the previous day. Then, in our
way to Krakow, we’ll stop by Auschwitz for an afternoon visit.
After
We go to lunch after 9 AM and it’s around 10 AM
when we
leave the hotel to go directly to the hairdresser recommended in the
hotel to Eva. I go alone to Raclawice Panorama in the meantime and pay
30 zlotys for the admission ticket. It seems a group gets in every 30
minutes and I’ve been lucky enough as per going straight in as the last
person of the current group, so doors are closed just behind me.
This is a 360º panorama with a moment of the
Raclawice
battle painted in the wall and is thought to make you feel like you
were there, with 3D elements, like branches starting in the painting
and coming out from it. In the 30 minutes this visit takes a voice is
describing the real battle facts in the painting, from one specific
point to the left until reaching the starting point again, where it
finishes. When a leave the place is just the time to pick Eva up.
Yesterday, we left just the area around the hotel
to
explore: the core of this Old Town. We pass by St. May Magdalene
Cathedral and get into the big Market Square or Rynek, like it is
called by the locals. It is full of live and wooden kiosks.
We spend some time looking to the magnificent Old
City
Hall building with Gothic architecture. We leave the square just a
moment to see the University’s library.
St Elizabeth Church, which is just in front of the
hotel,
is totally covered by scaffolding with a blue cover. Once in the hotel
we ask for the car as we’re bringing baggage downstairs.
We say good bye to Wroclaw, which is looking like
a big
city to us. If we can base on what it takes to leave the city, we could
say it is even bigger than Warsaw. Then we take highway A2 heading to
Katowice as, just after it, it’s the exit to go to Auschwitz. Before
that, we stop in a services area for lunch. We pay 60 zlotys for my big
pork knuckle and the portion of chicken and golabki (cabbage leaves
wraps) for Eva.
It looks like if they don’t want people to visit
Auschwitz, as there are no signs for it until you’re nearly there. We
reach it with the help of cell phone’s GPS. Access is free, so we only
must pay for parking.
We access inside through the railway gate and
check the
plans to see the best is to walk to the end of the barracks field and
then coming back through one of them.
The first shock about this place is how big it is.
Among
all the identical barracks, there are only two and the of them opened
to the public, which are well signed. The rest of the camp is closed,
and crematoriums collapsed.
This visit has taken a few more than one hour and
we pay
10 zlotys for the parking before our final drive to Krakow. We’ve been
called by the apartment’s guy and we’re going to meet at 7:30 PM. We
arrive a bit late after the traffic jam in the last toll and the hard
of finding a place to park, as it is not allowed inside the Old Town.
We take the keys and rest in our room.
