Day 2: Oświęcim (Auschwitz), Poland

Transit to a place with a dark history from World War II

Jun 1, 2026 • 2 min read

Rainy morning

The weather forecast was not good, so we put on our rain gear and hit the road. For the most part, it was not bad, but we had two sections where we drove through the storm. I did not do much recording with my GoPro camera, because there was not much to record.

Upon arrival in Oświęcim, we found the apartment and unpacked. The town is not very big. We wanted to see the two museums that tell the history of the Auschwitz concentration camp, but it was only possible to get tickets online, and the next two days were sold out.

We rode 280 km today. The tour odometer showed 805 km.

The concentration camp memorial site

The concentration camp site was about a 25-minute walk from our apartment. We walked through a nice park on our way there.

The town is nice and tidy. Overall, I was impressed by how good Poland looks. If I compare it with Slovenia, I would say that the Poles have similar standards: they keep their houses and gardens nice, and they like nice cars.

The town gets many visitors, mainly one-day visitors to the memorial sites who come by bus. We arrived at the concentration camp memorial site and checked if we could get in, but it was not possible. So we just took some pictures from the outside.

The memorial museum

We then walked to the other part of town, where the memorial museum was built. We were not able to get in either, because the tickets can only be reserved online and they were sold out for the next few days.

Image gallery

Short video clips