Day 9 - Krakow, Poland

Wow, what a beautiful city and what an amazing day we have had today. This morning we were dropped back into central Krakow and decided to make our first stop Schindler's factory. To save time we caught a tram part of the way, but we ended up going the wrong direction! I had a polish bread/bagel type thing and we eventually found ourselves in the old Jewish ghetto area.

While walking from the ghetto to the factory we found a fruit shop with raspberries. One huge punnet (see picture) was 6.5 Zloty (approx 2.40 NZD)!!!

Schindler's factory has been converted into a museum all about the experience of the people of Krakow during WW2. This was sad and horrific, but very well done. We spent two hours the and had to rush through the end when we realized the time!

We then returned to the old town of Krakow and, after exploring some shops, we decided to have lunch in the beautiful town square. We tried traditional polish pierogi. These are like gyoza dumplings, but Stef says they are not as nice. I really liked the flavour. The lunch for the two of us was around $20NZD, which was a bargain considering I had salmon, we were charged for the water plus our drinks, and we were in the main tourist location in Krakow!

After the lunch we explored the cloth hall, an old market place that sells souvenirs now. As you can imagine, they were cheap, so we bought quite a few! We have learned that Krakow was a rage city because of the "white gold" or the salt, which made a prosperous trading town.

The next stop was Wawel Castle (again with the soft v) which was a very medieval castle, surround completely by a castle wall and with a beautiful church inside (no picture allowed). We explored the castle area for a few hours, it was so pretty.

We then went into the dragons den. Krakow has many myths and tales about its past, one of them is the dragon. Legend says that a dragon was eating the townspeoples sheep and raping the young virgins. The king offered his castle and daughters hand in marriage to anyone who could slay the dragon. A visiting cobbler stuffed some wool, sulfate and fat in a sheep and left it out for the dragon, the dragon ate it and blew up. The cobbler and princess lived happily ever after at Wawel castle.

Unfortunately there were no dragons in the dragons den, but as it was an underground cave, it was nice and cold!

After a short rest we were picked up and taken to the Wieliczka ("we-zil-ka") salt mine. We had a two hour guided tour in the salt mines. The mines are full of carvings from the salt. There are many chapels (40) around 300kms of passage (we walked 2), 9 stories (we went down 4) and the mine is 700 years old! This was an incredible experience. The biggest chapel is the largest underground cavern in the world and the whole place is an UNESCO heritage site.

I licked the walls (tasted like salt!) but stef was too chicken. Hopefully being in the salty environment will have killed all my bugs.

We are off to Prague tomorrow, getting up at 6am because as well as a long drive, we are stopping at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

- Heidi


Photos are:

Libby and I at lunch in old town square
Chapel in the salt mine
Raspberries!!
Libby, Lee, Stef and and Maew at dragons den
Stef with Pope John Paul II (he was from Poland, first pope not from Rome in 400 years)
Me in salt mine chapel
Stef and I at Wawel castle
Stef's pierogi