July 30
Today we got up and we drove to our Airbnb. It was an apartment that was over 100 years old! It was really nice to be able to spread out and have some of our own space. My mom did some laundry and then we walked into the old town of Krakow for dinner.
This is a model of the town of Krakow.
The old town has a grassy park that runs all the way around the outside, in some places you can see where the old cities walls are still standing.
On one end of the old town there is the huge castle – called the Wawel. It is a huge complex of the old castle, the main cathedral as well as a museum.
Krakow is known for the dragon that lives under the castle, we were able to take a trip through the dragons den and found a statue of the dragon beside the river.
At the other end of the downtown in the barbican – an ancient fortress with a moat and huge thick impenetrable walls.
We walked between the two and stopped in the central square for dinner. We had a lovely dinner of meat and cheese tray followed by pork schnitzel and some delicious pasta with bacon.
July 31
Today we had a great time meeting up with my dad’s friend. Mr. John Sikora used to teach with my dad at St. Charles College.
His family is from Poland and he comes back to visit a lot. Mr. Sikora took us out for ice cream! It was the best ice cream we have had yet! Ice cream in Polish is “lody”.
We then took a walking tour of the old town and into the Jewish quarter. We were able to see many of the sights that were involved in the story of Schindler’s list.
We talked about the story and what happened to the Jewish people of Krakow during the war. The old Jewish quarter is being rebuilt with new Jewish restaurants and we were able to hear Klezmer music being played.
We all went out for a pizza dinner and my parents were able to sit and chat for a while.
What a great night! It is so nice to meet up with good friends.
Aug 1
This morning we got up early and we walked down to the bus station to catch the bus to see the famous Wieliczka Salt Mine.
The bus was very full and we had to stand the entire way – but the ride wasn’t too long. When we got to the Salt mine and it wasn’t very busy so we were able to get into line right away and go inside the mine for the tour. They gave each of us a headset that let us hear our tour guide better – I really like having my own headset because we were at the back and we could hear our tour guide clearly.
We started the tour by walking down about 350 stairs and about 130 meters below ground. We toured through many different parts of the mine – and walked for about 2 hours – but she said we were only seeing about 1% of the total of the mine. The mine has been in use since at least as long as the 1100’s, but we saw an exhibit that showed that Neolithic people used to gather salt from the water pools that formed on the surface near the mine.
The last miners to actively mine for salt were in June 1996 – however, salt is still mined from the Wieliczka mine, they pump salt water out from underground and through a salt extraction process remove the salt that way.
The miners would dig the rock salt out and fill wooden barrels.
Horses that lived underground in the mine would turn large winches to raise the rock salt from underground.
The mine shafts and open spaces were held up by wooden beams – there was no metal used in the mine. All the supports and bracing were done with huge polish pine trees.
We saw many large carvings that the miners carved right out of the salt. We saw many carvings: Nicolas Copurnicus, Princess Kinga, King Cashmir the Great, and other famous Polish people.
There were huge underground caverns that have been converted into massive chapels all carved out of the salt.
It was incredible to see. Even the chandeliers were made out of salt. All of the carvings in the mine were made by the various miners and some dedicated their lives to religious carvings in the chapels.
The final carving to be added to the mine was the carving of Pope John Paul II in 1996.
On our way out, we stopped to see the displays of the various types of salt that is found in this mine and in the mines around Poland.
The salt in this mine is very grey as it was mixed with sand, but there were some areas that were very white, other mines in Poland produce the pink, blue and green salt.
What a neat place to see.
Thank you Poland! What a wonderful country!! Dziekuje!
Tia and Mari
Comentários