Hotels near Auschwitz, Oświęcim

The visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum was below my expectations and disappointing. The tours are very well organized, from access to clear guidance for visitors, which helps you focus on the experience itself. It’s not an easy place to visit emotionally, but the tour itself is a simple business...It hurts seeing a place with such a great historical value, deep emotion and sufferance, turned into a 21st century business sold by Polish people to the world. Our visit here left us with a deep disappointment and a sense of indignation. + The personnel were acting very rude during our guided tour, rushing the visitors through the visiting areas, telling us to move faster, and even refusing to allow me to stop and read the English description of the expositions, because "there's no time", even if we have paid for 3 hours and a half tour, and got 2 hours of marathon. Sad...

Bit strange for Booking.com to offer an 'incredible' rating. Auschwitz is by it's nature a shocking and equally solemn experience. Auschwitz 1 has plenty of photo exhibitions and really shocking torture and prison facilities to be viewed. Birkenau (Auschwitz 2) is just incredible to see the vast size of it, but besides a few retained barracks it's mostly ruins you will see there. Best advice is to come prepared, study about Auschwitz and the Holocaust before your visit, read plenty of books and / or TV documentaries. There is plenty on the https://www.auschwitz.org website too. Without prior information this memorial site may appear to the unskilled eye just like a holiday camp-site. The retained buildings and the ruins will not tell their story by themselves.

Visiting Auschwitz defies conventional travel experiences—it's not a site one “ranks” in tourism. Reverently preserved, it stands as a somber memorial to the 1.1 million lives lost there. The enormity of that number is haunting, and the atmosphere carries a solemn stillness. I anticipated encountering something overwhelmingly sinister or evil, but instead, I sensed a space that had been spiritually confronted and purified—a place of mourning rather than malevolence. If you choose to go, please conduct yourself with quiet respect. Avoid any lighthearted or silly gestures, especially in photos or selfies; this is hallowed ground.

Unbelievable place of reflection and a somber remind that evil does exist. It's hard to say anything negative of Auschwitz. Camp 1 and 2 are just mind blowing. My tip would be to plan, plan and plan some more. I had to take a guided tour because the site is not open until 4pm without a guide. So I paid for the english guide times 5 to get in by noon. I asked how many people per group. I was told no more then 30. NOT TRUE. Almost 40 in our group. The guide who was a 20 year veteran at this job and site was very passionate about her teachings. Her english was not so great but she tried and the message was heart felt. Sadly the audio and microphone does not work well when the wind is blowing or when your underground or worse when your transitioning from one stop to the next and you are to far behind. You are also competing for space with every other language group that leaves 15 mintues apart. I found this to be incredibly noisy and definitely hard to focus and hear our guide. It's a shame that this story is so rushed and time can't be taken to reflect on what you are seeing. This historical important site is crowed, louder then it should be and a definite money making business which might be the saddest part of the whole visit!

It's hard to leave a smiley face for such a sinister place but it was a very good visit. Great work has been done in preserving what happened at Auschwitz and long may it continue as a reminder. I would always recommend the guided / group tours as you have your own headset to listen to the guide and the stories bought more realism to the tour.