Hey,
A few weeks ago I visited the amazing city of Kraków with my bf. He had planned the trip as a surprise a few months before and had everything planned for us to do I just had to show up haha 🙂 (thanks to Roscrea Travel ) Kraków was always somewhere that I wanted to visit and had been on my bucket list for a while so I was delighted that I was finally getting to travel there. We flew from Dublin directly to Kraków with Ryanair on a Monday evening and returned Thursday night.
Horse and carriage tour
Cocktails in the sun
Buildings around the Main Square
Cloth Hall
Beautiful Buildings around the Main Square
Hotel
We stayed in the Alexander Hotel in Kraków. This hotel was perfect for us. The rooms were a bit on the small side but we spent barely any time in our room as we were so busy being tourists. The location of the hotel was the best bit we were within walking distance from the Main Market Square where we spent our evenings shopping, eating and having cocktails.
Tours
As my boyfriend had everything booked for us we had each day planned out well in advance so we made sure we made the most of the few days we had in Kraków. The tour that we did was Auschwitz Birkenau & Salt Mine which was done over two days. He booked it through the travel agents here but the tour operator was Discover Krakow here
- Auschwitz Birkenau
This was a place that I always wanted to visit and definitely one that I would recommend if you are visiting Kraków. It is so incredibly sad to think what happened here and visiting here is an experience that I don’t think anyone will forget.
This was a full day guided tour and we were picked up at our hotel and brought to Auschwitz first. We were each given headphones and a radio that we tuned into our tour guides microphone and the tour began. The tour guide makes a huge difference on this tour and I would highly recommend it he was so passionate and the information he was telling us on the tour was amazing. We then got back on the bus and was brought to Birkenau this concentration camp was so much bigger than Auschwitz. This was where the Gas Chambers were. Visiting Birkenau was completely different to Auschwitz there was an eery silence all around and it was incredibly sad there. Again our tour guide was brilliant a few people that were on our tour had visited before and said our guide was the best they had. You can visit these without a tour guide but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Auschwitz
Auschwitz
Auschwitz
Birkenau
Birkenau
Birkenau
- Salt Mines
For this tour we were picked up again by Discover Krakow in the morning and brought straight to the Salt Mines. Again we were given headphones to listen to the tour. This tour was about 4 hours long it does involve a lot of walking so be prepared. At the start of the tour you have to walk down 380 steps to get to the first level. At the end of the tour in you are 135m underground. This really is an amazing tour there are many chambers in the mine and the ones that we saw were stunning all the statues, chandeliers and the floor were made from salt in the below pictures.
Shopping
There are many shops around the market square and down little streets off the main market but I still wanted to head to a shopping centre. I googled the best shopping centre and what was closest to us and it was Galeria Krakowska this place was huge. It took us hours to get around it and we went the same day as the saltmines I don’t think I have ever walked as much in my life. This shopping centre had Zara, Zara Home, Inglot, Sephora,Pease, Bershka, H&M, Nike, Pull & Bear, Pimkie, MAC and loads more. Below are some of the bits that I picked up here.
Any questions you can comment below or contact me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat – ShellLaBelle1 🙂
Richael x