Day 23 – Krakow

Krakow was a lovely city to visit, here the Pole’s noticeably understood English better than the Hungarian’s in Budapest – which made life so much easier. Just outside of Krakow is a salt mine that has been mined for over 700 years, is rather famous, and holds temperatures of 14-15 degs in its lower shafts. This seemed like an exciting idea, especially with average outdoor temps around 35 deg.

We bussed out to the mine and went in tour group through it – starting by descending 340-ish stairs covering 64 metres (thank goodness there was a lift out at the end!). Salt mines were very valuable and back in the day salt was used as a form of currency, and it was not uncommon for people to get payed in salt. The shafts and chambers in the mine were impressive, especially since they were all dug out by hand! Eventually horses were used to power the pullies, and they were kept in the underground stables chamber in good conditions. Needless to say these horses wouldn’t be short of salt licks!

All the walls were carved into salt rock and we all had fun licking the walls to test. The miners were very skilled and there were statues carved out of salt (which we couldn’t lick or it’d disappear eventually!), a chapel (where the woodwork of Jesus and Mary is immaculately kept from the preserving nature of salt), and… A CATHEDRAL

this was a very impressive part of the mine, with carvings into the walls of the story of the New Testament, using clever perspective that gave an impression of depth.

After the salt mine we stepped outside into the raging heat. We had a lot of trouble finding a bus stop to return to Krakow. After much dehydration and an extra dose of Vitamin D we found it, got back to town, and into the air-conditioned mall.

For dinner we went to some Cowboy styled restaurant. The inside was air-conditioned… excellent, the people next to us started smoking… not so good… but the waiter (dressed as a cowboy) was pulling out all the smooth moves to get our orders!!! So we loved it. Food was good, but the waiter really made it fantastic…. Go him, he even pulled out some Demetri Martin styles and kept adding “ladies” to the end of his sentences (youtube: Demetri Martin jokes with the guitar for “ladies” joke).

Krakow has been good.