Thu 18th - left the hostel in Berlin very early and caught the subway to the bus station. Here we caught the 7am Polski bus to Krakow. The bus was very busy and also very crampt. Hardly any space and only really stopped once for us to get off and get some food. We arrived late into Krakow. The bus station was very central so we were able to walk to the hostel (Giraffe hostel and bar). As soon as we got in it looke noisy as there were loads of people in the kitchen. There was some function that evening but the girl at the reception assured us that it would not be noisy. We decided to walk outside and look around. We walked over the Christmas market which was lovely, less crowed then those in Germany. We had a chai latte at a cafe near the market. Back at the hostel it was really noisy all night. I asked to checkout out a day early and get a refund. I spoke the manager on the phone but he refused a refund as the credit card payment had not shown on his statement. We complained to reception again in the middle of the night but they didn't go anything.
Fri 19th - we complained again in the morning and decided to checkout either way as the Ibis Budget was cheaper and close by. In the end we got a cash refund for one night. We walked over to the Ibis and dumped out bags then caught a mini bus to Auschwitz. We spent about 4 hours at Auschwitz. It was located in a more built up area than I expected but it was very sobering. There was a lot to take in and we were quite exhausted by the end. It was almost 70 years since it was liberated. We got the bus back and went to the Christmas market for dinner (had lots of veggies).
Sat 20th - we got up and walked down to Krakow parkrun which was located at a park in the city. They were very friendly and it was well organised. The course was 2 and a bit loops and again we found hard with the cold. After they had hot tea and cake etc as this was the last before Christmas. We walked back into the city, went up to see the castle and the dragon statue and looked around the market (had a bulgarian cheese bread for lunch) and some shops and a local market (great internet connection). We managed to get a later checkout (until 3pm) so chilled in the hostel then took our bags over to the bus station to get the bus to Worclaw. This bus was quite spacious. At Worclaw we had to get off and wait about 4 hours so we went over to McDonalds in the bus station to wait until midnight. Our bus to Prague came. It was like the original Polski bus we got from Berlin. We managed to get 2 seats to ourselves to stretch out. The trip to Prague was out 5 hours.
