Our train was due to depart for Kraków at 7:50 am, so we stopped briefly at Macca's for breakfast. It was actually quite tasty! We didn't realise that we got breakfast on the train, so we ended up choosing croissants for morning tea.

On the train I flicked through the supplied Polish magazine and there was one article in the whole magazine in English. I discovered that World Youth Day was in Kraków for the next few days. While it didn't officially start until the next day, all the young Catholic pilgrims were starting to arrive from all over the world today, with the Pope arriving in two days. The place was full of young people singing and clapping as they walked along, as well as numerous nuns, monks, priests and the like. We were definitely outnumbered!

There was also a very high presence of police, armed forces and other security personnel. I've never seen so many guns and it was very confronting seeing so many people with large rapid fire versions.

After leaving the train, we walked towards the Old Town to start our sightseeing and came across a tour in a replica vintage car. We decided we'd give it a go. We toured through the Old Town and saw Florian's Gate and the Barbican (15th century fortified gateway) as well as a number of buildings. This included the 13th century Church of St Francis of Assisi, the town hall, Cloth Hall, St Mary's Basilica and a university (amongst others).

After leaving the Old Town we travelled through the Jewish Quarter before stopping at the Corpus Christi Cathedral to view the interior. We had told our guide that we had seen lots of churches lately and we're happy to just spend time seeing them from the outside, but he recommended spending time to view this one.

We then continued on to the Kraków Ghetto. This was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and persecution of local Polish Jews, as well as the staging area for separating the "able workers" from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life. The Ghetto was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943, with most of its inhabitants sent to their deaths at Bełżec extermination camp as well as Płaszów slave-labor camp, and by 60km rail to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

We travelled across the same bridge the Jewish people were forced to cross when driven from their homes to the ghetto, all carrying some of their possessions, including chairs. There is a square we stopped at not far from the bridge which now has a series of chairs spaced out across the square as a memorial. We also crossed the disused rail line to Auschwitz and stopped to view the remnants of the wall around the ghetto. It was a very sad and moving experience.

How people can become so radicalised that mass killing of humans is normalised for no other reason than because they are from a different group is really hard to accept. But it has happened throughout history, over and over again, and it still continues today.

After the last six weeks of travel I am also tired of learning about the repeated invasions by nation after nation across time. They are just like Burglar Bill, "I'll have that!".

On our tour we were going to enter Schindler's factory, but there was an hour long queue in the sun so we elected to travel on to Wawel Castle, the end of our 1.5 hour tour. We trudged up the hill in the heat to find a queue (of course), after waiting a few minutes we were told that all the tickets for the day had been sold already. Too many people in town today! Oh well, we still saw the building from the outside.

We decided we would stop for lunch and I received the largest chicken schnitzel I'd ever seen, it was bigger than my plate! Luckily Anthony helped me out as there was no way I could eat it all.

After lunch we walked through the park back to the station. The entire Old Town is surrounded by a green leafy park full of giant Chestnut trees, grassy areas and park bench lined paths. In the past this area contained the city walls and moat. It was a lovely walk, although a bit sticky.

When we arrived back at the railway station we tried our luck getting an earlier train back, but there were no vacancies, so we filled in an hour in the large air conditioned shopping centre before taking our seats for our return journey. The train was comfortable, clean, spacious and empty! In first class anyway. So we had our pick of seats and a delicious included meal.