Kraków; Friday, 02 June, 2006

First stop of the morning was a museum to the North West of the city centre. It was billed as being about the history of Kraków from 1939 to the 1950's. I was expecting quite a bit on the war, but it is almost the whole of the museum, and makes for a very sobering and depressing museum. Not helped by the fact the museum history ends with the suffering people suffered after the war under Soviet control. The museum is housed in the building that, during the war, was the headquarters of the Gestapo. You can go into the small block that was used as cells to hold prisoners in. It is a thought provoking, but very emotionally draining experience as you realise that many of the markings and scratchings made on the walls were the last words that people wrote before they were either executed or died under torture minutes later.

From the museum we walked back to the centre of town and stopped for an early lunch, before heading off to the happier surroundings of the university (though it was from here that the Nazi's rounded up and deported nearly 200 professors, doctors and lecturers in 1940, many of them died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin before international pressure finally forced the Nazi's to cave in and release them). The university buildings were built in the 15th century and are spectacular, set around a central courtyard with a gallery stretching around the first floor. Entrance to the university museum is on a guided tour only and we were lucky enough to get there in time to take the last English tour of the day. The tour takes in the stunning old library and treasuries of the University. One room on the tour is dedicated to the former student Nicolas Copernicus, who went on to change the whole concept of the universe (the phrase that the Poles like to use is that he stopped the sun and moved the earth!)

After the college we had a wander around the centre of the old town taking in a number of the different churches that are everywhere in the city centre. After looking around the Franciscan and Dominican churches, we headed to the domed church of Saints Peter and Paul and the neighbouring church of St Andrew before heading back to the market square for an afternoon beer pause before taking in the cathedral church of St Mary.

The church is spectacular with a beautiful painted ceiling and the largest alter piece in the world. However, you can only see a part of the church as the remainder is partitioned off for prayer only (though some tourists had snuck in that way, avoiding the entrance charge, and were taking photos (also forbidden) and were getting a telling off from the church staff!)

Churched out we caught the tram back to our hotels for a short break before heading back out to town and dinner.