Krakow- Auschwitz tours.

Tim_Richmond

When we go Krakow we want to do the tour to Auschwitz with an English speaking guide. How does it work do Auschwitz organise the tours around the camp or does the tour company do this. What should we expect to pay for a tour, including admission prices.we are planning to visit Krakow in March/April or early May. Preferably we would prefer the minimum hassle and the bus to pick us up at the hotel or at a point nearby. Any advise/comments will be appreciated.

welshuser

No, been a few times and in Krakow there are tourist offices that offer day trips to Auschwitz and the Salt Mine etc. I think if I remember you pay around £15 for a day trip and they lay guides on who can take you. Suggest you do the visit towards the end of your trip or else it'll be a huge cloud on your time away.

daveyjp

Try krakowtours.co.uk. Run by an English guy and his Polish wife.

http://www.krakowtours.co.uk

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g274772-d1872627-Reviews-Krakow_Tours_Private_Tours-Krakow_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southern_Poland.html

Lokolo

Personally, I found there wasn't much point in a guided tour for Auschwitz II and found it better to go around at your own pace.

However Auschwitz I definitely a guided tour and I found the ones organised at the camp to be good enough.

timbo58

Yes, as others have said, you can use the tour or go round yourself.
Make sure you see Auschwitz and the Birkenau site (its about 2 miles away from the main HQ Auschwitz site and is vast).

Worth visiting Kasimerz (the Krakow Jewish district) and definitely Oskar Schindlers factory too.

Most Poles there seem to speak excellent English and the prices for meals etc are around 1/3 UK prices.

Lokolo

Just wanted to add, I also don't think you need to spend the whole day touring Auschwitz. There is a lot of walking as it is and if you spend the whole day doing so you will be too tired to do any other activities in Krakow (castle or salt mines, or as timbo says, Jewish Quarter)

But thats just my view having been twice, others may disagree.

Saint_Chris

daveyjp wrote: »

Try krakowtours.co.uk. Run by an English guy and his Polish wife.

http://www.krakowtours.co.uk

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g274772-d1872627-Reviews-Krakow_Tours_Private_Tours-Krakow_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southern_Poland.html

Highly recommended, and for a extra few pounds his wife will make you a packed lunch up.

We did both camps and we did the salt mines in the afternoon, phil picked us up, we decided that we did not want a guided tour, as we felt that we know the basics of what went on, and we did not want to be standing around learning more.

Phil picked us up, and put on a dvd in his excellent transport, when there, he gave us a map and a information booklet, but there's lot of information around, he waited outside for us, we did not spend a lot of time here, for us it was sombre and we just wanted to reflect in silence, without a guide talking to us through headphones.

When we left phil took us to birkenau, again we decided to do this ourselves, we went up the tower, and then walked the trainline, and went to the very back where reach country has a plaque for remberance, then we went into the woods at the back.

I'm glad that we did this on our own, as I do not think that there is much more that I needed to know, or even wanted to know.

then phil took us to the salt mines, on our way we had the packed lunch his wife did for us.

It was a long day and we knew it would be, but as we was only in Krakow for 3 days we wanted to make the most of it.
day 1 was the jewish quarter and the new town
day 2 the camps and salt mines
day 3 podgoriz and schindlers museum

I loved my break in Krakow and along with Madrid it would be one of the 1st places I would return.

hts

ecstaticstatic

If you choose to go for the existing tours at the camp, we went on one this summer and found it to be more than enough for us. Frequency depends on the time of year but as I recall when we went (in July) English language tours were either every 30 or 60 minutes in the camp and we didn't need to book in advance, we just turned up.

The gentleman doing the tour explained everything very well (they give each person on the tour a set of headphones so they can hear him speaking into the microphone). He did two tours a day and hadn't chosen to take a day off from doing them since February as he had a strong need to do it, some of his family had died in the Holocaust.

As for prices I think we paid about 40 zlotys each (about £8 per person) for the tour which included a few hours on the Auschwitz 1 tour, and a shuttle bus to Auschwitz 2 with a brief tour (but you can choose to stay and look around for longer after the tour is over as shuttle buses are very regular).

As for getting to the museum I would check the official website (which I can't link to I'm afraid) for that as we drove there (and managed to drive to Auschwitz 2 by mistake due to only following the sat nav).

Jem8472

I have been to Auschwitz with Phil from krakow tours.

He was very good. Picked us up from our hotel and then we had to pick a few more people up. But it was a people carrier not a mini bus so there was only a group of 6 of us.

When we got to Auschwitz Phil took us through the entrance hall and gave us a map and gave us I think 2 hours to look around Auschwitz.

I think I preferred that to the guided tours that were happening. The tours seemed to be moving very quickly. We would be looking at one of the displays and a tour group would come in and be gone before we had look at everything.
Also the national exhibits were very good. There is a very powerful one in the Netherlands exhibit, it is the names of all the deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz written on a wall and its massive. So many names!

The Polish exhibit was good as well.

Phil then took us over to the second part of the camp and took us around and explained things there as there is no information there its just as it was left at the end of the war.

We then got dropped back near the centre of Krakow. It was a good trip. I am just glad I did not have to bother with public transport when visiting somewhere like Auschwitz.

marky_p

It's also really easy and absurdly cheap to get there by train, should you be that way inclined.

aileth

Krakow Tours is fully booked when we go. Has anybody got any other tour operator recommendations? There are so many.