Back to the Salt Mine

Saturday, October 6, 2012 

 

We drove to the town of Wieliczka this morning, arriving on time for our 10:30 English-language tour of the famous salt mine.  Interestingly, when we bought our tickets yesterday in Krakow, there were far more English tours available than any other foreign language.  In fact, for many of the members of our tour group today, English is their second language.  As in so many countries we’ve visited, here in Poland the knowledge of English is common, especially among the young.  We’ve been grateful for, and humbled by, that fact so many times.

 

The tour of the mine was interesting, but edged into overkill; what took three hours could probably have been done in two.  Nevertheless, as we descended 110 meters underground, we were impressed by much that we saw.  Statuary, bas relief, chandeliers, chapels, floor tiles, and building blocks – all carved from salt -- were remarkable, as were the underground lakes and cavernous chambers – one of which has accommodated an underground hot air balloon flight!

Since our wonderful GPS never heard of a nearby town we wanted to visit, this afternoon, after a quick visit to the Marker square and after getting lost (FOLLOWING ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SIGNS!!), we finally found the museum housed in Oskar Schindler’s factory.  The exhibits there chronicle the story of Krakow from the German invasion and occupation of this city in 1939 through the course of World War II, and they give a vivid picture of the horrific circumstances of its citizens, particularly the Jews.  In the exhaustive coverage of the period, there are just a couple of small rooms devoted to the role that Schindler played in protecting the Jewish workers in his enamel works.

Pierogi and bigos for dinner tonight; I’m going to have to dig out my Polish cookbook (yes, I do have one!) when we get home.

From Tom-I just wanted to mention an incident which was reminiscent of that wonderful flight over here. We were finally leaving the salt mine by elevator when we started ascending and the elevator stopped partway up the shaft. We backed down and tried again. Failed again! We then backed down and the elevator operator said “passengers off”. A few people got off, he closed the door and we tried a third time. With all holding their breath, we made it up the 500 ft shaft. What fun!!!