Auschwitz-Birkenau & Wieliczka Salt Mine Full-Day Tour from Krakow

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

Auschwitz was established by Nazi Germany in 1940 on the edge of the Polish town of Oświęcim, about 70 kilometres west of Krakow. It became the largest of the German concentration and extermination camps. At least 1.1 million people were murdered here, the great majority of them Jews deported from across Europe, together with Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and people of many other nationalities. The camp was liberated on 27 January 1945, the date now marked as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Memorial and Museum was founded in 1947 and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. Our Auschwitz tour from Krakow removes the practical worries: the coach journey takes about 90 minutes, and Auschwitz tickets with an official guide are reserved for you, as visits in the main season must be booked with named entry.

Auschwitz I, the original camp

The visit begins at Auschwitz I, set up in former Polish army barracks. You pass through the gate with its notorious inscription and walk between the brick blocks, several of which now hold exhibitions. They document the deportations, daily life and death in the camp, and the personal belongings taken from the victims, such as shoes, suitcases and spectacles, which make the scale of the crime painfully concrete.

Your guide also leads you to Block 11 and the courtyard of the Execution Wall, and to the first gas chamber and crematorium. This part lasts about 2 hours. Visitors are asked to move quietly and respectfully, and photography is not permitted in some rooms. The guides are trained educators of the Memorial, and the headsets let you hear every explanation without raising voices.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau

After a short break, a transfer takes you about 3 kilometres to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the largest part of the complex and the place where most victims were killed. You enter beside the railway gate and walk along the unloading ramp where deported families were separated on arrival. Rows of wooden and brick barracks stretch across the vast site, giving a sense of the conditions in which prisoners were held.

At the far end stand the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, destroyed by the SS before the camp was evacuated, and the International Monument to the Victims, with plaques in many languages. This part lasts about an hour. Many visitors find it the most moving moment of the day, and there is time to stand in silence before the group returns to the coach.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine

In the afternoon the coach drives about 90 minutes to Wieliczka, just south-east of Krakow. Rock salt was extracted here continuously from the 13th century until 1996, making it one of the oldest salt mines in the world, and in 1978 it was among the first sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Over the centuries salt from Wieliczka funded much of the Polish royal treasury.

A local guide leads the Wieliczka Salt Mine tour along the Tourist Route, a walk of about 3 kilometres through chambers, corridors and underground lakes, with wooden stairs at the start and a miners' lift back to the surface. Is Wieliczka Salt Mine worth visiting? After a heavy morning it offers a calmer, awe-inspiring end to the day. Plan about 2.5 hours underground, where the air stays at 14 to 16 °C all year.

The Chapel of St Kinga and the salt chambers

The highlight of the mine is the Chapel of St Kinga, about 100 metres below ground. Miners carved everything here from salt over several decades: the floor, the altar, the reliefs on the walls, including a celebrated scene of the Last Supper, and even the chandeliers, whose crystals are made of salt. The chapel is still used for services and concerts.

Along the route you also see older chambers with original wooden machinery, life-size figures of miners at work, and sculptures that tell the legend of St Kinga, the Hungarian princess who, according to tradition, brought salt to Poland. Your guide explains how salt was cut, hauled and shipped. Wieliczka Salt Mine tickets with a guided tour are included, so you join the route without queuing for entry.