Thankfully, I joined a day-tour with AB Poland Travel, which means... I still have the itinerary handy to help me out. 

Krakow is the second largest and one of the oldest city in Poland. Compared to Warsaw, Krakow was much more vibrant and there's literally people everywhere. There were also much more historical sites being one of Poland's oldest city and most importantly, they are more than just museums.

Before entering the Main Market Square at Old Town Krakow, we past through a little castle, or what I thought was a little castle. Apparently, this was the Krakow Barbican, which is a fortified outpost once connected to the city walls. This is a historic gateway which led into the Old Town of KRakow and the picture below is one of the few remaining relics of this complex fortification and defensive barriers that once encircled the royal city.

During the tour, my friends and I had a chance to first visit the Main Market Square. This is the biggest Medical old town square in Europe. Here, people enjoy the unique atmosphere with lots of bars and restaurants, historical buildings and horse-driven carriages... and there were of course, lots of pigeons too.

Sukiennice

Directly across the Main Market Square at Old Town, was the St. Mary Bascilica. This place is also called the Church of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and it is a Gothic church built in the 14th century. This church is perhaps one of the best examples of Polish Gothic architecture. On every hour, a trumpet signal is played from the top of the taller of St. Mary's two towers. The tune of this trumpet signal actually has an abrupt ending, as if it was unfinished, to commemorate the famous 13th century trumpeter, who was shot in the throat while sounding the alarm before the Mongol attacked the city. Legends also say that if the trumpeter waves at you at the end, you will have good luck. And if the trumpeter waves at you with his trumpet you will have more than just good luck. Not sure what that means, but the trumpeter did both on the day I was there, so maybe I got double good lucks?

Before heading off to the Wawel Hill where the monarchs used to live, many many years ago, I also happened to stop by the University of Krakow. Only briefly though, where I learned that this is the oldest university in Poland and the second oldest university in Central Europe. And believe it or not, this university is one of the oldest surviving universities in the world. Many notable alumni are from this chool including mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish king John III Sobieski, Pope John Paul II, and Nobel laureates Ivo Andric and Wislawa Szymborska. Their coat of arm is found in the courtyard of this school.

Next stop was the Wawel Hill where the Castle, the Cathedral and the Royal Castle is located. It is said that the Cathedral and the Royal Castle is the most picturesque and important sight in Krakow.

Wawel Castle
Wawel Castle is the castle residency in central Krakow. Built at the behest of King Casimir 3 the Great, this castle consist a number of buildings around an Italian-styled courtyard. I unfortunately did not get to tour around this whole castle, but there are two truths to this. One, this castle is one of the biggest in Poland representing nearly all European Architectural styles of the medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods. 

I did not had a chance to go to this cathedral either, due to the tight timeframe of the tour. But this Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church with over 900 years of history. It is the Polish national sanctuary and traditionally has served as coronation site of the Polish monarchs as well as the Cathedral of the Archdioces of Krakow.

This is a Gothic cathedral and it's the third one on this site. The first two were destroyed in the 11th century and 1305 by a fire.

To the peak of this trip was to visit this place, Auschwitz. The primary symbol of the Holocaust where a network of concentration and extermination camps were built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by the Nazi Germany during World War II. Going through this well-preserved place and the collections of museums was just merely a glimpse of what cruel terror and unimaginable genocide occurred in this very place.

During this tour, I also visited the the Birkenau camp, a short ride from Auschwitz. This camp functioned as a war camp, extermination camp and a place from which people were sent to labour in the Nazi Germany. 

The tour guide told us that one of the better jobs at this camp was cleaning out the toilets. These toilets have no plumbing system and the people who cleaned the toilets have to use their hands to scoop everything out. Why was this a better job, you may ask. It's because these workers reeked so much that the Nazi German soldiers will stay away from them, and it is these workers that avoid the other cruelty treatment some other people may have at this camp, Birkenau.

And before we know it, the tour ended as we left Birkenau. Unfortunately, most that were brought here during World War II never left.