Night location: Krakow

A day of love and horror.

To start with love: today marks our fourth wedding anniversary. Our hotel is fantastic so we enjoyed a leisured start to the day with a nice breakfast in what appears to be an old cellar with high arched ceilings. We feel very fortunate to be travelling together physically and metaphorically.

Sadly, our day was spent viewing the absolute opposite of love. Auschwitz remains the horrific evidence of the incomprehensible evil nature of humanity. For two hours we followed our guide around Auschwitz One in silence, stunned by the exhibits in the various blocks that demonstrated the gross loss of human life. Suitcases, spectacles, shaving brushes, shoes and hair, piled in mounds.

The final hour was spent in Auschwitz Two - Birkenau. It was the scale and the methodical nature of this place that was particularly overwhelming. Twenty times larger than Auschwitz One, it was here that the mass extermination of Jews, indirectly and directly took place. Running through the middle were train lines that led to a platform where the selection took place as to who was fit or unfit for work. Those who were unfit were taken straight to one of the four gas chambers and crematoriums while those who were deemed fit were sent to be tattooed and then processed into one of the many brick or timber huts, seemingly to die a slower death. Of the 1.3 million people brought to Auschwitz, only 7000 were liberated.

It was a harrowing but important experience that will stay with us forever.

To conclude with love: David had researched and booked us in to an excellent restaurant for our anniversary dinner. While the conversation was fairly muted we remembered our wedding day and celebrated the future.