Sunday, May 5
Today was a much-needed return to levity and mental escape. The day started off well when I got a solid night’s sleep, probably the first I’ve had since I got here. One thing is for certain is that jetlag isn’t nearly as easy to cope with as it was when I first started traveling 25 years ago. Taking 5 days to feel normal again is a pain. Remind me of that when I get home and go through it all again.
Anyway, same hotel breakfast as before and I was picked up at 8:50 by Comfort Tours Krakow for Wieliczka Salt Mines, arranged by my hotel. Oh how nice it was being escorted around in a Mercedes SUV with just four other guests. Yesterday’s nightmare of the massive tour bus full of 60 infirm passengers was long gone (though I did check to confirm that I booked a small group tour in Munich for Neuschwanstein, phew!). The driver dropped us off at the entrance to the mines with the appointed English speaking guide and saw us off on the tour. We joined a group of about 20 other English speakers with our one Wielickzka guide.
Now in an effort of full disclosure, I’ll admit that this wasn’t even on my radar for this trip. I read about it and thought it looked sort of kitschy and not my thing and I had plenty else to do here. And then I had Sunday free and I’d seen all I’d planned to, so that’s when Wieliczka Salt Mines came into play.
The carvings and chapels and grottos in the mine have been built over the last 200 years or so by miners who wanted to memorialize themselves and their time down there. Rock salt was extremely valuable to the Poles at one time (more expensive than gold) but now the miners who still work down there are primarily maintaining the chambers and features of the carvings.
The entire system is kept at a constant 57 degrees which is what is best for maintaining the salt. The earlier exhibits (all made of salt!) explain how the mining worked, showed how the horses moved the salt that was quarried out of the shafts and the role salt played in history. The statues are of people from mythological characters to religious scenes, politicians, poets and Pope John Paul II. We saw two grottoes or lakes that are as salty as the Dead Sea. One they used to let guests take a boat on until 7 soldiers went out and started to dance in the boat, the boat capsized and yes, I know what you’re thinking, that’s ok because you float in that water, right? Well, no, not if you’re stuck under the capsized boat. They died and ruined the fun for the rest of us.
Anyway, the tour group makes its way through a series of tunnels. Everything is rock salt except for the wooden beams and structures supporting the shafts and everything around it. Wood is used instead of metal because it doesn’t corrode like metal does in the presence of salt. There were long sections of tunnel that were split by doors periodically. Due to the air pressure in the tunnels, we’d all have to get into one closed section and close the door behind us before we could open the next door in front of us. I was surprised by how temperate it was, how not grossly humid and how fresh the air seemed. I wanted to ask the guide if her hair or skin benefit from the constant exposure to that environment but she’d disappeared before I had a chance.
The grand finale before a series of gift shops was a large chapel that had to be four stories high and so ornately carved and decorated, it was breathtaking and at the same time hard to realize that it was all below ground. They also have a pretty large function room and a few smaller chapels. The guide said people frequently get married there (and they take advantage of an elevator installed for the handicapped guests so no one is traipsing down 800 stairs in a wedding gown).
It really is its own little village down there. There were a few toilet stops, at least two snack bars and a larger cafeteria. And somehow, credit cards worked in the gift shop. Hmmmm....
The guiding there is really well choreographed (Auschwitz could take tips from them on this). They let the groups go about every 4 minutes. None of the explanations at any of the caverns took much longer than that. The groups were kept tightly together (especially when it came to the pressurized doors) and any stops for toilet, snack, souvenirs or photos in the largest rooms) were strictly timed. That meant it was never really crowded at any stop and that we didn’t have to wait for an elevator like the general public has to if they go on their own.
So I came away suitably impressed. Who knew? We did get a bit stuck because where our guide led us outside was a place we didn’t recognize and she disappeared before we could ask how to get back to where we were meeting our guide to return us to Krakow. I plugged it in my iPhone maps and 10 minutes later we found him.
It was misting heavily when we got back to Krakow. I decided to walk back to the National Museum and just poke around the exhibitions there but on Sundays it’s free and between it being free and the rain, it was a madhouse. Plan B was to walk back to the hotel and just pop into all the churches along the way and see what I could see there. That was fun. It occurred to me though that when I went into one right around the corner from my hotel, that I’d been in it earlier in my trip. Indeed, it was Pope John Paul’s church when he was here and it was across the street from the building he stayed in when he came to Krakow as Pope. I’d approached it from a different direction on my first (jetlagged) day here on my walking tour, and had been by there a few times coming and going to other places and not even realized it. Hmmm. So then I decide to revisit castle hill and pop into the cathedral there, because I now doubted what I remembered from that church, but it all came back to me when I saw the relic of Pope John Paul’s blood on the altar. Yep, I’d been there.
I’d heard about a restaurant with some good vegetarian options from the ladies on my food tour, so I headed there around 3:00 for a late lunch/early dinner. It was wonderful! It was about 2 blocks in off the Old Town Square and called Zalipianki. I had carpaccio of veggies (zucchini, cucumber, beets, radish) with goat cheese and cranberry sauce that was to die for. I have been craving veggies and this really hit the spot. My main was pierogis filled with sheep’s cheese and topped with caramelized onions and beets. Dessert was a massively deep dish apple pie. That Winnaca rose that I have had here twice now was on the menu, so who was I to say no? All in, it was my most expensive meal at $35. It has been incredibly cheap here to eat incredibly well.
After dinner I poked around the stalls in the market in cloth hall, walked up Florianska Street one more time just window shopping. There’s a little vodka shop on that street that will sell you shots of vodka, so I tried a caramel infused one, which was interesting (but warming, much needed with it drizzling and cold!). I made it back to the square to hear the bugler do his hourly call at 5:00 and checked out the flower stalls in the square on more time.
I started to flag about from walking around and the cold and wet was getting to me so I had one more drunk cherry drink at the little shop closer to my hotel and called it a day.
That’s it for Krakow. I’ve enjoyed it here and have certainly eaten well. I’m checked in for the flight to Munich and all packed.
No comments:
Post a Comment