A Hole Lot of Salt

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We had an early breakfast this morning and we left with plenty of time to get to our bus stop. We had gotten to the end of the street when we remembered that tickets might be a good idea.

After a considerable amount of waiting for the right tour, being allocated "Krakow Tours" stickers and showing of tickets we were eventually on our way. After being irritated by group tours yesterday today we were part of one. In our defense you are not allowed around the mines without a guide so we would have been in a guided tour whichever way we did it.

The salt mines were in a town called Wieliczka and are a bit of a tourist trap but worth seeing. We were slightly annoyed that they charged you 10zL to use your camera in there, so we definitely didn't bother. It was a working mine for seven hundred years and only stopped functioning in 1996. We walked 800 steps and three kilometers which is only the tip of the iceberg with its 200 kilometers of passageways. Whilst the carvings inside the mines are definitely impressive it didn't possess the wow factor that some mines and caves can with their natural beauty.

The mine is famous now for its carvings and statues. Some of the earliest date back to the 16th century and are now little more than funny shaped rocks. They show you a few chapels and caves with lakes, all which were carved by hand. No explosives were used. At the very end of World War 2, Hitler wanted to use the mines as a place to contain the Jews, but this didn't happen because the war ended. We would definitely recommend the tour to people; however the level of tourism there is a bit too much.

The coach dropped us off in the main square, so from there we went back to the hostel to get changed because it was way too hot. After wandering around for a bit, we found a cute little café where we sat in the shade in the courtyard and had a rather late lunch.

With us planning to leave Poland tomorrow, we had left it rather late to find about trains there. We already knew that buses only ran at weekends, so train was our last hope. To cut a long story short we spent a long time trying to sort out accommodation and travel which we eventually did with some help from some lovely people at the hostel. This Aussie called Regan started chatting to us as he is going to the Ukraine himself and had some great help for us.

We were already to go out for our last night out when we both decided that we just wanted to stay in and watch a film. The girl at our hostel ordered us a pizza and we spent the evening watching Bulletproof Monk (terrible film) and Dogma which we both enjoyed. Regan joined us for Dogma and after we stayed up very late chatting.

We are just about to go to sleep now, however we are much happier that we have somewhere to stay when we arrive in Lviv tomorrow. Thanks for everyone's comments, they are so nice to read and we hope we aren't boring you with our blogs.
Night night. Stob.

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Photos

Skanky Foot
I hasten to add that Rob's are just as bad if not worse. I think it's a BIG side of backpacking, your feet really do suffer.

Comments

[Brian]

Hi Gald to see you are not wasting money doing the boring bits inside homes and castles it all seem a bit familiar doesnt it Steph,as always looking forward to the next episode Chers Brian