Important: Wikitravel is exploring a license upgrade to CC by-sa 3.0, please give your consent or refusal here.

From Wikitravel

Market place

Town Hall

Oświęcim[1] is a city in southern Poland.

[edit] Understand

Oświęcim, a town of 43,000, lies in Southern Poland, roughly 60 km fro Kraków. The town is best known as being home to Auschwitz I, a WWII concentration camp, and its close proximity to the Auschwitz expansion camp - Auschwitz-Birkenau, an extermination/forced labor camp.

The first record of the town dates to the 10th century. Originally, Germans and Poles inhabited the town. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Jewish population of Oświęcim began to grow and in a relatively short time Jews were in the majority.

[edit] Get in

If you need a driver with a car you can book it here http://www.PrivateKrakowTours.com

• By car from Katowice (35 km), Krakow (60 km, route 780)
• By plane arriving to Kraków-Balice (55 km) or Katowice-Pyrzowice (70 km)

[edit] Get around

• Bus

Buses are frequent and cheap, if not totally reliable around the town. Particularly to the Auschwitz museum not far away.

• Foot

Oswiecim is easily navigated on foot, as everything is closeby.

[edit][add listing] See

• Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi camp
• Oswiecim Castle
• Cemetery of Moses Religion
• Auschwitz Jewish Center, it includes a museum about the former jewish life in Oświęcim. Jews were for 150 years the majority in this town.

[edit][add listing] Do

Visit Old Town Market, now under reconstruction (spring-summer 2006). The same for the Castle. Under reconstruction - to be finished later this or next year.

[edit][add listing] Buy

Anything, as Poland is notoriously cheap.

[edit][add listing] Eat

• Hotel Galicja, a bit pricy, but fancy cuisine. Dabrowskiego Street.
• Rapsodia the pizzeria. Good Italian style pizzas, reasonably prices. Sniadeckiego Street (by the town's Culture Center (OCK)).
• Scorpion Restaurant, just opposite the Station, very cheap, not overly friendly, but a wide variety to choose from when waiting for a train.

[edit][add listing] Drink

• Galerija, nice bar, sometimes small exhibitions.

[edit][add listing] Sleep

• Hotel Galicja [2] a short taxi ride from railway station and memorial.

[edit] Get out

• Krakow

An hour's journey from Oswiecim, take the bus or the train from the train station. See Kraków for more information.