The land of the Poles

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Here is finally a continuation of the summary of the three-cities tour. After Prague, we went for three days to Krakow, Poland. It is a very simple but beautiful city. A few parts of it strangely reminded me of Minneapolis, actually, which is random.
Anyway, the people in Poland were very friendly, and I felt very comfortable there. It was the least dazzling and fancy of all the three cities, but that can be a good thing. And the lack of tourists was a wonderful change from Prague.
We toured a castle, which you will see in one of the pictures, and we went to the salt mines, which was a site like none other. Auschwitz was what I was totally NOT looking forward to because when I went to Dachau it was really emotional for me. Auschwitz was even worse, especially because one guy in the program had a grandfather who was in Auschwitz. But it was good to go and get a fuller impact than just from reading about it in social studies classes.
I will conclude this with a bunch of pictures now 😊

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Photos

The Cloth Hall
This is one of the most popular shopping places in Krakow. I didn't buy anything since it is priced for tourists, but it was like a museum, because there were a lot of beautiful things like Polish amber, etc.

pigeons swarming around an excited child
This brings back some Japanese memories

Jewish restaurant
We had an amazing feast of Jewish cooking paired with some very well-performed Klezmer music.

Krakow synagogue
Currently the only working synagogue in Krakow

View of Krakow 2
These views of Krakow are both taken from the top of the bell tower.

salt mines
My friend Dan took this. We all pitched in to buy a "picture-taking license" of about three euros or something, and he took a whole bunch of cool pictures. This one is of the ballroom, where many wedding receptions are held. Imagine having your wedding underground. Weird!

wishing bell
This was on top of the bell tower, where the superstition of touching the bell and making a wish inspired us all to make a wish.

Comments

[Aunt Dianne]

Cloth hall
Was the cloth hall indoors or outdoors? Are the salt mines still mining salt?

[alia142]

The Cloth Hall
The Cloth Hall is sort of indoors... it doesn't have doors, but it has walls and a roof, so it's like a tent but made of concrete. So it's kind of like a combination of being inside and outside. As for the salt mines, it does indeed still mine salt, and I was one of the gross people who LICKED the wall, and tasted the salt. It was exactly like regular table salt!

[Andrea]

Preist
We have a Polish preist at St. Joes named father Peter. He lived in Krakow before coming here. You're going so many cool places! You must be having SO much fun!

[alia142]

Yay for Poland :)
Really? That's really cool. Krakow is really nice! I am definitely having fun :) Maybe sometime I will meet Father Peter, and can talk to him about Krakow.