Lucky for us, the Hotel Copernicus is very well located. We are not far from the huge, beautiful Market Square, the largeat in Europe and second largest in the world as well as the Wawel Royal Castle just at the end of our street.
Built in the 14th Century, up on a hill overlooking Krakow, Wawel Castle constitutes the most historically and culturally important site in Poland. It was a residence of Kings and a symbol of Polish statehood. Now the Castle is one of the country's premier art museums. We walked all over the grounds and into it's magnificent Cathedral. It appears larger than Vatican City.
Later in the afternoon, we got on a tour bus to go to the famous Wieliczka Salt Mines on the outskirts of Krakow. Along the way we saw a building reminiscent of the Communist Era, drab and dull as could be.
Then we arrived at Wieliczka, the only Salt Mine in the world preserved in such pristine condition and placed on the list of original UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
More than one million tourists visit it each year, and the three levels that tourists can visit goes down 135 meters underground (that's 440 feet down, or about the equivalent of a 36 story building)! I DID NOT WANT TO GO because I thought my claustrophobia, which I haven't suffered from in many decades, might flare up a little just thinking about it! But everyone says it's a must-see, and Marty really wanted to go, so I decided to be a good sport, and this would really test whether my old phobia was completely cured.
This Salt Mine is the only one in the world where mining has continued uninterupted since the Middle Ages. Extending down nine levels (only three can be visited), with tunnels running a total of 300 kilometers (180 miles) and reaching the total depth of 327 meters (about 1,000 feet or about 90 stories), it illustrates all the stages of development of the mining technology over time.
Our Tour Guide, Margaretta, was marvelous , and mentioned that at the height of the tourist season she gives three of these two-hour tours per day! I can't even imagine that!
Moisture causes the salt to ooze out of the mine shafts, and everything you see in the mine, except for some floors and support beams, are made of wood or carved in rock salt...AMAZING!
The stairs are rock salt.
These tracks were for railroad cars and carts and ran throughout the mine. These tracks were gentrified and encased in wood.
This salt sculpture shows the miners pushing carts on the rails. A scene depicted from a hundred years ago.
The mined rock salt is sometimes formed into logs for easier transport. Each could weigh a ton.
This was an underground lake with unbelievably steep stairs lit up to see the route down...AMAZING!
The lake is filled with...what else but very salty water, saltier than the Dead Sea. The air is salty too, and people can come down here and stay in facilities for medical and curative reasons, e.g. the air is very good for helping respiratory ailments like asthma, emphysema, and COPD.
This lake deep in the mine used to have boat rides that went from the lake through this tunnel to another lake on the other side. But a terrible accident many years ago where an overloaded boat capsized and several people died trapped under the boat (the others were rescued since they could not drown due to the high salt content). Since then no more boat rides.
There are carvings and monuments in salt honoring famous people, events or saints everywhere...
A scary dragon was peering out between the columns. Miner's humor.
And beautiful chapels of which there are many throughout the mine, some were moveable.
This was the piece de resistance, a GIGANTIC CHAPEL WITH MAGNIFICENT CHANDELIERS...words just don't give it justice!
These two guys were on our tour and just happened to get in this picture with Margaretta...keep them in mind for an amazing two-degrees-of-separation story further down.
Besides a hotel way down under the ground, there is also a formal dining room, snack bars and souvenir shops, and even a theatre. I keep saying AMAZING, but how else can you describe it?!
You can buy different qualities of salt to take home, of course...
And carvings made out of salt as well.
We thanked Margaretta at the end for a wonderful tour.
Now to the most serendipitous happening of the trip so far...
Remember these two guys from up above?
(Spoiler alert! Beware of the 'F' word in this story.)
So we're at the final chamber of the mine at the third level, waiting for the elevator to go back up to the top, 130 meters. The elevator itself has 3 sections, actually 3 cages, one on top of the other. Each section is about 9 sq. ft. and holds 9 people, squeezed in like sardines. (All I can think of as we squeeze into the bottom of the 3 cages is that mine disaster in Chile a few years ago and how they brought them up out of hell via that cage.) So anyway, this guy standing right next to me says: 'Have you been to Auschwitz?' and we said 'Yes,' and he remarked how sanitized it was, which is true, it was. As we got out of the elevator cages at the top level (it takes 40 seconds), he said 'Auschwitz is nothing like the museums in Rwanda where I go for business...the museums there memorializing their genocide are so new that they still have dried blood on the walls and human remains.' So when we peeled out of the cage I said to him 'Rwanda? We know someone who lives there, Josh...' and he said, before I could, 'Ruxin. Yes, in fact we had Rosh Hashanah dinner with him and his lovely family just last week!". I slapped my thigh, and said 'Oh fuck! OH FUCK!! That's not possible!' We explained to him that we know his parents very well, and Josh and his family too! What a really small world! Serendipity in the Salt Mine in Krakow! WHO WOULD BELIEVE IT?
We found out that their names are Peter and John and they live in Washington, DC. We all left so fast after that to catch our respective tour buses that we didn't have a chance to exchange contact information much less last names. Don't know if we'll ever see them again, but this chance-in-a-million meeting just blew our minds!
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By the end of this long day, we were spent in every way, and got back to our hotel just as Jola was arriving to pick us up for dinner. She gave us some time to wash up and then we came down to meet her. That night she had arranged dinner at Klezmer-Hois, a Yiddish restaurant in the Jewish Quarter. It was so charming, with an authentic ethnic atmosphere. We were the only ones speaking English, just how we like it...not touristy at all.
We never would have found this restaurant on our own, and on a night with such a fabulously intimate concert as the entertainment. We loved it as soon as we walked in, which made Jola happy as she prepared to order. The restaurant serves traditional Jewish food which we enjoyed, as did Jola who is not even Jewish.
She helped us with the menu so that we got to taste a variety of dishes.
This is Carp, cooked on the bone with a bean sauce...we ate it carefully.
I had roast duck with some kind of potato kugel and a special savory condiment on top...it was tender and delicious.
Marty had a beef goulash with the same potato accompaniment. The condiments are typical of this cuisine, and very interesting.
We were exhausted from the salt mine tour, but the music and atmosphere were so special that we forgot how tired we were.
All in all, it was a very unique and special day.
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