Day 33: Arriving in Krakow

I woke up on the train around 5:45am and slept surprisingly well. If we would have had the full six people in the cabin, it would have been much worse. Our train was about 30 minutes late so we didn’t arrive in Krakow until 7:15am but I didn’t have any plans for the day so it didn’t matter.

Turns out I was wrong – it was about a 45 minute walk, which doesn’t sound that bad, but when you’re carrying 50 lbs on your back, it can get pretty tiring. Not only was the walk itself far, but I also got lost along the way. What I did was email myself a screen shot a map of Krakow, showing the train station and the location of the hostel. The problem is that on an iPhone, you can only zoom into images so far, and because the picture was so big, I couldn’t make out the names of streets.

I finally found my hostel and it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. It is rated pretty highly but it just looked like someone changed their flat into a hostel by adding some beds. It wasn’t necessarily bad (they do have free wi-fi in the rooms) – just not what I was expecting.

I was able to check in around 8:30am and grabbed some breakfast in the small lobby/bar. I talked with the guy who checked me in for awhile and then went upstairs to shower and figure out what I was going to do.

I checked the weather and today (the 17th) was supposed to be the only day with good weather while I was here. So instead of taking a walking tour like I had planned, I decided to go to Auschwitz.

Now there are two main ways to get to Auschwitz: either by train or bus. The bus is about half the cost, but takes two hours instead of one to get there. I knew that a train was leaving at 10:30am so I just left for the train station without bothering to send myself a map.