Krakow, Poland

Hello from Zacopane, Poland.  We have a car now so I did not have a chance to blog backwards on the train.

We had five days in Krakow and saw a lot!

Where to start? Well, as usual with a free walking tour!  Big Tom was our excellent guide from the North end of the Old Town to the South.

Tower of old city wall.

This is the Barbican (basically a fortified gateway).

Market Hall

This old church with uneven towers is interesting. One of the towers belongs to the church, complete with church bells ringing on the hour.  The other tower belongs to the city and has a trumpeter playing a tune four times each hour.  

The University

At the southern end of the Old Town is the original Krakow.  Krakow was once just a small city on Wawel Hill with a castle and a cathedral.

The Wawel Cathedral

Pope John Paul II is much revered in Krakow, where he once served as Archbishop of Krakow.

Inside the Cathedral:

From the bell tower:

Czartoryski Museum was interesting.

We went in to see the painting by Leonardo da Vinci but found other things funny/interesting.

What is the story with the teeny-tiny little priest in the bottom right here?:

makes no sense... am I right?

Ok - this is why we went into the museum. Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci. Dated 1489-1491, it is one of only four remaining portraits of women painted by Leonardo - the most famous of which is the Mona Lisa.

I personally found her more compelling and beautiful than the Mona Lisa - certainly less crowded and more accessable.

They even had a cutout for selfies!

I am always amused by signs but this one is a bit alarming! LOL

There was a whole square with book sellers ... unfortunately for me, all were in Polish!  This little nook was near the book market.

Back to Wawel Palace. We decided to do something a little different, we did an "underground" tour.  This took us under the Palace and highlighted the architecture and history of the palace, rather than seeing more thrones, weapons and chandeliers.

These tiles in the wall were for a "brick" fundraiser.  Similar fundraisers at Lutherhill or Minute Maid Park, you make a donation and get your name memorialized on the wall/ground. 

Some old architecture:

more fundraiser bricks

the water well

doorway arch

Back down the hill to St. Mary's Basilica.

We were walking but imagine if you were driving and saw this street sign - 

... quite a bit of information to take in!

road narrows, workers and general LOOK OUT!

Out for a walk after dinner we crossed this bridge.

It had these figures in the middle that were simply balanced - they swayed and bounced in the wind!

nothing holding her to the line other than good balancing!

super nice pedestrian/bike bridge!

As we crossed the river we entered the Jewish Ghetto where 43,000 of the 60,000 Jews living in Krakow were forced to live beginning in May 1940. This memorial, consisting of 33 empty chairs (one for every 1,000 people) reminds us of the lives lost as these people were taken to Auschwitz or other camps, never to return.

On Wednesday we took the train to go tour Auschwitz.  

At the entrance "Arbeit mach Frei" - Work makes you Free.

After Auschwitz we saw Birkinau where those condemned arrived by train.

It was a somber day, a day to remember those lost and to renew ourselves to speaking up so that such a tragedy (on a large or small scale) does not happen again.

Yesterday (Thursday) we headed out of Krakow in our rental car.  On the way to Zakopane we stopped at a salt mine for a tour.

We are not terribly interested in salt mines but it is super hot here (94F) and we understood the mine was 60F inside!

It was interesting, regardless ... we first walked down over 400 steps to get to 64 meters (213 feet) below ground.

This mine had been worked since the 14th century.  I'm not sure if they were bored or what but there were all these carvings - from rock salt...

... ancient machinery ...

... chandeliers decorated with pure salt chrystals...

... a church which holds service at 7:30 am every Sunday with scenes from the Gospels, carved from rock salt, all around the sanctuary...

...giant halls - which can be rented for receptions ...

... and weird pools of super salty water - 30% salt!

In 1915 eight drunk soldiers capsized their boat in this water. Because of the density of the water they could not dive/swim out from under the over-turned boat. They eventually suffocated, basically died from CO2 poisoning.

What a way to end the blog post huh!?!

Ready for some days in the mountain!

Take care and stay cool!

Sheri & Carsten

PS. The salt mine did have an elevator to the surface but we had to walk a long way to take it and when we merged we were no where near where we had started. Had to walk a distance to get back to our car. So strange!