Poland

We found our hostel fairly quickly but since it was only 6:30am our rooms were not yet available to us, So we decided to walk the streets looking for somewhere nice to have brekkie. It didn't take long to realise that Krakow doesn't wake up till a little later, so we had to settle for a coffee in a 24 hour internet cafe :-)

We settled into Krakow fairly quickly, mainly because it's a cheerful little town and the hostel we stayed in was very cosy. It was good to meet some of the other guests too, and have a bit of a conversation! On one particular evening, we were talking away when we realised it was 3am! During our time in Krakow, we also made a visit to another Concentration Camp in nearby Auchwitz/Birkenau. There's probably not much I can say that you have not heard in history class already, but what really stood out was the scale of the camp, and to see with my own eyes the extent to which the Nazi's went to, to kill people.

After 3 days in Krakow, we headed north (a little) to Warsaw. There was almost non-stop rain for our time here... some of it was like being in a rain forest... which meant we were restricted to our hostel for a much of the time :-( Our plan was to travel from Warsaw straight to Russia (St. Petersburg), but little did we know (until the last minute!) that the direct train passed through Belarus - which requires a transit visa to pass through!