Weekend in Krakow

We left early in the morning to drive to Krakow for the weekend.  We even were able to go without the DVD player for the whole weekend!  The boys did a weekend - and BEHAVED in the car - with no electronics!  For us, this was a huge success since the drive was a little over 4 hours each way.

Awesome Family Photo
in front of carved Salt

Our first stop was the Wieliczka Salt Mine.  It is a World Heritage Site and has been mined for over 9 centuries!  The tour took three hours.  And it was really amazing!  The kids were occupied the entire time.  The town was super clean and really well marked - it was a really great tourist area.

We then we drove in to our hotel (Hotel Fortuna).  What a great find that was!  It had a huge room with extremely high ceilings, off street parking, breakfast included, and was only 2 blocks from the main square.  It was even a very good price!

After unloading, we walked over to the main square to hit the market for some amber.   We walked through all of the stalls in the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) in the square.  It is one of the oldest known shopping markets and is now a large tourist area.  Poland is also a really good place to buy amber cheaply.  (Everything was very well priced there!!)

Next we ate on the square at the Sioux restaurant where you could sit in covered wagons.  The atmosphere was really nice.  We didn't realize what kind of restaurant it was until we were inside with the menus - another Mexican one!  It was good though - and very well priced.  We all ate entrees and all had drinks and Brian even had 2 beers - all for around $30 euros and on the square!   The customer service was also excellent everywhere we went.  We really loved Krakow and are looking forward to going back to spend more time.

On the way home, we drove through Auschwitz and Birkenau.  We had not planned to go, but since we were that close, we decided that we should see it.  We drove by Birkenau and saw groups of people walking the path between the two locations.  There were not many tourists there - mainly busses of students from Israel.  The weather was dark and damp too - made the whole experience even more somber.   We then drove over to Auschwitz and walked in to the entrance.  The way the signs were written, we needed a guide and also they didn't really want kids under 14 to enter.  So, we didn't go in, but drove around the perimeter and the rest of the town instead.  The web does say that the guide option is a change and may only be during certain times, and that children under 14 aren't "recommended" (different than the wording on the signs at the entrance) - so maybe we'll go back a different time.

All in all, we really liked Poland!  The money was still in Zloty instead of Euros, but that may have helped the prices.  Everything was just so much more reasonably priced - it really made us realize how expensive it is here in Bratislava.  We'll definitely be visiting Poland again!

Facebook Album of Krakow Visit