Kraków (day 6)

With breakfast behind us and a packed lunch ready, we walked to the old town for about an hour this morning. We actually got back to the car on time, or actually on time at the Wieliczka salt mines (on the edge of Krakow).

These salt mines have existed for about a thousand years and have been a tourist attraction since the 15th century. With a guide, you walk down a staircase to a depth of about 64 meters, after which we walked into the mine shafts. Besides the hard work in the mine, there was also room for art and religion. For example, various statues were sculpted from salt stone and a church was set up in one of the rooms. A larger church was set up in another larger room, where relief works were made in the walls (including the famous 'Last Supper' by Leonardo da Vinci) and in 1999 a statue of the former Pope John Paul II was added. There is also a lake in this mine! The tour eventually took us to a depth of 135 meters. After this tour, you had to go through a souvenir shop and restaurant (all located in different rooms in the mine) towards the exit. However, it is not that simple to go outside immediately, because you can choose between two tunnels: either you continue a bit further and visit the museum section (only accessible with a guide) or you choose the exit. In both cases, you had to wait in line until you were allowed to enter the tunnel (think of a queue at an attraction). We chose the museum and had to wait. Eventually this line was allowed to go inside, but it turned out that there was now a Polish guide (we had to wait even longer for an English guide, but we didn't feel like it). So we saw the museum pieces, but didn't understand a word of the explanation. After seeing the museum, we walked back to the car and drove back to the apartment. When I got there I took a rest because I have muscle pain in my upper leg after I got a cramp there yesterday, I have pain in my back, and after I tripped I felt a shooting pain through my back and I also have pain in my ankle. In the meantime, groceries were done for dinner. When the shopping was done, dinner was cooked, and then we sat down to eat. After dinner, I had another quiet evening and I watched Ajax. Tomorrow we leave Kraków and drive to the capital of Poland: Warsaw!

Day 5

Travel overview

Day 7