After spending a couple of hours walking around the centre of beautiful Krakow, admiring the Christmas markets and trying to keep our toes from frostbite as the hail began to fall. Finally relenting and darting into another traditional Polish restaurant for an early lunch I had dumplings, again. Spinach and onion utter deliciousness. Unfortunately we practically had to shove them down as we had places to be!
Running through town (for the second time in under 24 hours) we made it back to the tourist office by midday for our guided tour! Travelling 12km out of town we arrived at the Salt Mines!
We arrived and had tickets handed to us before being ushered into a room and simply told to go. Alone. We had no idea what to do. We eventually found a door in the room and after much exasperation and pulling, we managed to yank it open (there was some serious pressure from the wind making it about 10 tonnes and impossible to pull) and were confronted by stairs. More stairs than I have ever seen in my life.
At one stage I looked down the middle of the stairs and instantly regretted it. I got such bad vertigo and an intense feeling of claustrophobia. Having to push aside any of that and march on, we walked down steps for forever. Seriously dizzy, we eventually reached the bottom and found other people and joined in on the tour.
A sarcastic Polish guide led us around the incredible mines deep in the earth. There is a whole other world down there!! It was amazing to walk around and see actual full scale cathedrals, it was pretty easy to forget you were so far beneath the earth! There were chandeliers made of salt, sculptures completely carved out of salt and even the ground (which looked like granite) was entirely made of salt. It was crazy, and not like the form you see on the kitchen table. It was a bit of a maze and would be so easy to get lost down there. A whole new world. There was even a museum, a gift shop and possibly the worlds lowest cafe selling coke and coffee the closest to the earths magma.
It was one of the weirdest things I've ever done and also one of the coolest. The absolute worst part (despite having to come to terms with being miles into the earth) was the lift ride back up. I can say that I would rather have climbed the over 800 steps back up than take that lift again. It was tiny, crammed with people and practically had no walls. It had about five storeys so there were people above us and below us and you could almost feel them walking on top of you. Not something I want to relive. It was definitely great to be on solid ground again. You had to wonder about some of the construction and structure holding everything up down there!
We came out into near darkness before taking another walk around the Jewish quarter, walking up to the castle and admiring it all in its lit up splendour. Caught the bus back to the hotel and mucked about (an unbelievably easy to way to pass time when you are in a hotel with about 40 others. Yes, fireworks were involved.) before a buffet dinner at the hotel. Rice! For the first time in a long time!
A wee birthday celebration for one of the boys on tour and a (somewhat) early night before an early rise for an intense day tomorrow. Prague in the evening to finish up the day!
Goodbye Poland, you were unexpectedly delightful! And cold. Bloody cold.
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