Poland: Krakow with mum

Felt just a little out of place in the lobby of a nice hotel looking like a dirty backpacker! Hopped in the shower hoping to beat mum because after 30 hours of travel she would want a shower straight away, but of course she was early and I had to greet her in a towel mid-shower! She looked a bit skinny and pale and sick after the events of last week, but very happy to be here. She felt up to dinner out so we explored the main square (not as pretty as Wroclaw IMO) but she loved the balmy evening air and the flowers in window boxes and the horses & carriages and all the restaurants spilling out into the square... She loved everything and it made me see Europe through fresh eyes again!

Over the next four days we had some amazing adventures around Krakow. We did a walking tour based on the Jewish history of the city which we both loved and learnt a lot from... There were 65,000 Jews in Krakow before WWII mostly in Kazimierz (Jewish quarter), then they were forced out across the river to a ghetto. The walls of the ghetto were shaped like Jewish tombstones in a cruel way to make them feel they weren't going to get out alive. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1943, those that didn't fit onto trucks were shot in the main square which we visited. The square is filled with an installation of empty chairs, symbolising that after the massacre, all the furniture was thrown out of the houses because Jews often hid valuables in chair legs, so that square was full of bodies and chairs.

Learnt that Roman Polanski escaped this ghetto as an 8 year-old by swimming down the river, and that he turned down directing Schindler's List because he wasn't ready to face it yet.. when he was ready, he did The Pianist.

Also learnt the real Oskar Schindler story when we visited the site of his factory, he wasn't quite the hero of the movie but I won't spoil it for you. As the guide said, whatever else Schindler did/didn't do, he still went to Auschwitz and saved his workers who were on the wrong train, after they had already been shaved for showers. No-one else ever got out after they had been shaved. And 'he who saves one life, saves the world entire.'

Now there are only a few hundred Jews living in Krakow, and only 97 of them are orthodox, so all the old synagogs which survived are now museums and things like that.

My favourite area of Krakow was Kazimierz. It used to be the cheapest place to live because the communist govt filled it with psychopaths and criminals (!!) , so all the artists and poor writers etc moved in, and now it's turned into the coolest area full of bars and alternative shops. There was a bar in which you didn't walk through a door, you walk through a wardrobe... I thought that was the best idea ever!

We skyped home to Dad and Pete which was so bizarre suddenly having Mum on this side of the computer screen, and also stumbled across a Pierogi (dumpling) festival in one of the old squares! There was a whole row of stalls from different restaurants selling only pierogi, and getting votes to compete with each other. There were choirs singing about pierogi, and someone read out a poem which sounded like an Ode to Pierogi. The fillings we tried were: white cheese and potato; smoked chicken, spinach and cheese; sauerkraut; blueberry; cherry and apple, chocolate... etc

Food and weather were great, Mum loved the Planty gardens which are a belt around the Old City and we did a couple of day trips to Auschwitz and the salt mines.