Morning to Everyone from Poland. Thanks for all the messages from everyone sorry we haven't replied to them individually.

So we have been in Krakow for 3 days now. There is so much to do we have decided to stay for another day. I would definitely recommend coming.

We arrived on Monday about 7am (thanks to the night train), dumped our stuff and went to find breakfast. Amazingly we found a small cafe that did a full english! It was amazing - we are so bored of bread, ham and cheese. Whilst in the cafe we flicked through the book and found that half the castle had free entry but you had to be there early to get tickets.

So after breakfast we trotted down - it wasn't kidding about being there early. We arrived at 9:15 (15 minutes after it had opened) and there were only 200 tickets left (50 went while we queued).

We dropped our bags off in the bag lockers (no bags in the castle and crown jewels) and spent the next three hours wandering round the castle which was really busy at 10am (I guess with all the people using their free tickets) but seemed practically closed by 1pm.

When we went back for our bags the place was closed. What insued was 20 minutes of panic as we tried to find someone who could help. And by now the castle was getting proper deserted. Exhibitions were closed, little staff arround. Luckily our bag attendant had wandered off to the loo and closed up but there was no indication of this. So we grabbed our bags - the last in the cloak room.

We went back into town for a look about, it's quite small but really nice with a huge pedestrian square full of cafes and bars. We found one called the art cafe which was selling beer for half the price of the rest and decided to sit and watch the world go by.

We decided to go back to the hostel for a rest. Sleeping on a train isn't as relaxing as you think. On our way home from the cafe we picked up a flyer about cheep beer (1.20 a litre) at a pub near the hostel and later that evening we went for a beer. A couple of litres later we decided food was in order so we moved from the garden to the restaurant.

They had a fish platter for two and claire and I both liking fish and not having had any lunch decided this was the way to go. Oh my god it was huge - whole trout, salmon steak, calamari, potato wedges, rice. Very full we rolled home to sleep.

On Tuesday we decided to join the local free walking tour. We've done a couple of these now and they can be a bit hit and miss. Normally they are about an hour and half long; run by students and can sometimes focus a little too much on the social scene and not enough on the history.

This one was a bit different - It lasted three hours and was very good. So we joined the walk at eleven expecting to spend the afternoon exploring churches. 3 hours and about 100 miles later our guide not only telling us about the local history from the 10th century to today has recommended local places to eat and even a tour of auschwitz that is half the price of the one recommended by our hostel. So we try the local eatery. 10 confused mintues later we have local smoke sausage, breaded chicken, meat dumplings and chips. At least I think thats what I ordered. Stuffed (seems to be a trend in poland) We still explore the town just a lot slower.

That night we decide to buy beers in, rest our feet and forget dinner.

Before we arrived in Krakow I had promised Claire a day off from walking and sight seeing. So Wednesday was our day off....

... who am I kidding by 11am I was restless again. So we booked ourselves on the 2pm tour of Auschwitz and Claire got the morning in bed.

In the summer months you can only get into Auschwitz with a guide so we had to go on the tour. Now this was good as we had someone to explain what everything was but was bad as I felt they had a tendancy to run around the camp.

It was an experience and one I think everyone should see. We spent three hours exploring Auschwitz 1 and 2. I won't go into more detail but we do have lots of photos to show our dads.

Ok today is day four here - Thursday, we should be leaving. But as noted before we are staying one more day as we haven't done the tour of the jewish quarter (including Schindlers factory) and seen inside the main St Marys church yet.

Then its on to Warsaw.

Mr P

ps those wondering about photos - don't ask flipping computers.