Too Many Questions

Picking out five pictures from our trip to Poland was next to impossible! Steve and I spent an extremely full week exploring Krakow and the surrounding area.

Throughout the course of our trip, we toured museums and castles and we ate TONS of perogies. (Yum!) We were also shown around some small towns in "real" Poland via A. Rodriguez (no, NOT A-Rod!), our friend from UNC.

Lastly, we also paid our respects to and mourned over those who perished at Auschwitz. There, we learned a great deal about the Polish perspective on World War II.

Sifting through the 150 pictures from our trip, I found myself wondering how to narrow down our visit to just five snapshots. Should I include a picture from Auschwitz? What about the view from our rented apartment? Or pictures from Poles celebrating Easter? Did I even mention that we were there over Easter weekend?

Additionally, Poland is developing. Much of the country is still overrun with poverty. Should I focus on the contrast between the beauty and newness of downtown Krakow and the rundown outskirts of town? So many questions...

Without further ado, my answer is below. I decided to focus on KRAKOW:

View of Downtown Krakow from Outside the City Gate

Wawel Castle

(Gothic Castle built in the Center of Krakow sometime before the 14th century.)

Rundown Train Station Outside of Krakow

(Traveling by train in Poland is actually quite an adventure. Most stations either have one hard to read sign or no sign with the stations' names. Announcements are only made in Polish. And, the trains run pretty slowly. In order to exit at the correct station, one must know the exact time of arrival to said location. If the train is late, you are pretty much out of luck.)

Graffiti in the Old Jewish Quarter, Krakow

Kraków-Płaszów Camp Holocaust Memorial
(In October 1942, Jews were deported from Krakow ghetto to a concentration camp at this site. The Nazis destroyed this camp in 1945, after which, the remaining prisoners were sentenced to a death march to Auschwitz. Now there are a few monuments scattered around the grounds. It only took Steve and I about 45 minutes to walk here from downtown Krakow.)

P.S. Out of respect, I decided not to post any pictures from our visit to Auschwitz. I believe that Auschwitz deserves its own full post. However, I am not sure if I am ready to go there.