Cracow, Poland. A great city

So,

After Warsaw, we took a train to Cracow, (or Krakov, or Krakow). The
train was a bit odd, as it took a fair amount of time to go not so
far, we had to change trains, as well as we had a long wait in a
trainyard (not at a platform).

We arrived at our transfer point (Breklov, Czech Republic) 15 minutes
late. (a bit irked about that). However, the connecting train coming
from whereever, was 35 minutes late, so wait 20 minutes we did, and on
the way to Cracow we were.

Like many European cities, the train station is right in the middle of
town. This was true in Crakov as well. They have a tram system (which
we decifered) and took down to the Jewish area, where our hotel was.
The ticket system is a bit on the honor system, and if you don't have
the coins, you are stuck (the driver doesn't sell tickets). The way
they do the honor system is at timest hey have a guy walking through
checking the time stamps on the tickets. We saw the tickets checked
once. We rode for free at least 3 times, as the machine was broken, we
got there before we could pay, or we just decided to stick it to the
man, and take the risk.

Crakow has a very nice center city, big church, big plaza with lots of
restaurants and booths, and more. Sort of your typical European city.
It is very nice, and we had some rain, but on the whole great.

We were in Crakov for like 3 full days, and did a couple of tours.
Before the tours, we did walk up to the castle on the river, and get
some good food in town. The first tour we did was to Auschwitz. I
wasn't super keen on going, as I've done Dachau twice (outside of
München), but Nicci surprised me and wanted to go. We got a big smack
of Nazi and Soviet history in Warsaw, and it continued in Cracov.

Much was been written about Nazi concentration camps (or more
correctly, Nazi death camps). I'll write a post just on it. We took
many pictures.

We also took a trip to a famous Salt Mine (which my father should be
glad about). This mine was in production for 750 years, and was pretty
incredible. I'll probably post just about that too.

One coinkidink (coh, ink, eey, dink) was that in the Crakow cathedral
tower (the taller of the two) there is a trumpter/bugler every hour on
the our, for the last several hundred years. The reason for this, was
back in the day, the Tarters attacked Cracov, and the lookout up there
saw it and played the alarm. In doing so, he took an arrow in the
throat. He saved the town, but lost his life. They have their own
version of "Never Forget" and this is it.

We left on another crack of dawn train, and headed to Bratislava.