After we arrived in Kraków on the night train we headed to our hotel, or rather apartment. When I was looking for places to stay it seemed like hotels were rare, but apartments were common. I booked us at a hybrid, it is an apartment but at least there is 24 hour reception. Of course we couldn't check in because it was before 8am, but at least we could drop off our luggage. Then we headed out to find some breakfast. Unfortunately it seemed like the rain followed us from Prague.
After breakfast we headed to old town square to join a free walking tour. I thought hardly anyone would show up because it was cold and rainy (we probably wouldn't have gone if we had somewhere to stay), but there was still a big crowd of over 30 people for the tour.
We met outside St. Mary's basilica for the tour. Every hour, instead of bells a bugler plays a Polish tune from the top of the tallest tower, four times, once for each cardinal direction. The guide told us this happens every hour, so if you happened to be there at 3am you would hear it, unlike bells which don't ring at night. He also told us the bugler shift is 24 hours long.
After the tour we headed back to the apartment where we could finally shower and change out of the clothes we'd been wearing for two days. The apartment was quite nice, it was large and actually had a loft with a second bedroom.
On another day we joined a tour to Auschwitz and Birkenau. This is not an enjoyable tour, but it is powerful and worthwhile. It was literally incomprehensible and unimaginable to me. You can listen to the descriptions of the conditions and activities and look around and try to picture the horror of it, but I'm sure I didn't even imagine a fraction of the reality.
-David
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