Captivating Geography
The contrast between Kazimierz (Old Jewish Quarter) and Podgórze (where the Nazi Kraków Ghetto was at). Kazimierz was where Kraków’s Jewish population used to be prior to WWII. After Poland was invaded, residents in Kazimierz were rounded up and forced to relocate to the newly established Kraków Ghetto at the Podgórze district across the Vistula River.
Of the two, we visited Podgórze first, as it was also where the Schindler’s Factory Museum was at. The area looked rundown, relatively dirtier, not much development taking place. We also located the remnant of a ghetto wall. Meanwhile, Kazimierz is now the center of Kraków’s nightlife. Upscale restaurants, bars, and cafes, all interwoven with synagogues, cemeteries, Jewish restaurants (the famous Klezmer house is here!). Kazimiers has been gentrified over the years, is what it is. While we were there, it did not at all give out a mournful atmosphere (having its residents forcefully relocated!).
I liked the contrast, because it wasn’t something that can easily be captured in books or photographs.
Top Academic Experience
“Top” not as in “fun”, but as in “significant”: Auschwitz-Birkenau (Figures 1-3).
Figure 1: A sign in the exhibition at Auschwitz Museum.
Figure 2: Fence details at Auschwitz.
Figure 3: Interior of a barrack at Birkenau.
Set my camera to monochrome the entire time we were there because that place saw so many lives perished that any remaining colour should also be drained, if not already drained. Won’t say I’m stricken by the visit. Conversely, it felt ironic. Maybe. There were all these tourists (us included) arriving (excitedly?) to Auschwitz-Birkenau, ready to tour the most notorious site in Nazi history. Back then, non-Aryans arrived at this camp expecting a completely different reality. Do the visitors today also arrive there with expectations? What is there to expect, though, besides death and pain and suffering?
I was a visitor. But I don’t have an answer to my own question.
Top Extra-curricular Experience
Kościuszki Mound (Figure 4) – “a symbol, a Monument of National Remembrance, and also the best viewing point in Kraków” (from the info board onsite). Completed in 1823, the Mound was built using soils from battlefields of the 1794 Kościuszki Uprising, and from battlegrounds where Kościuszki fought on during the American Revolutionary War (from the info board onsite). Very unusual commemorative site, that’s for sure. And it felt pretty special, too, to be there, much like it did at Bílá Hora in Prague. Needless to say, the view was also breathtaking (Figure 5).
Figure 4: Entrance to Kościuszki Mound.
Figure 5: Kraków as seen from Kościuszki Mound.
Eating Tips!
Walk along Grodzka street (the one that leads you from Rynek Głowny to Wawel Castle). On the right, there’s a self-service type of restaurant serving Polish cuisine. Not a fancy place, but good food (Figure 6), and relatively cheap, too. Try it out if you’re there!
Figure 6: White borsch with boiled egg (top); potato dumplings with gravy (bottom).
Picture references
Author’s own. [Figures 1-6]
Until then, let's just pretend. 
Leave a comment