The Wieliczka salt mines are about 15km south east of krakow and it took us about 30mins to get to the mines on the bus. Once there we got to stand around waiting for about 45mins before out tour was starting "go the red square group!"
Jenny catherine and Sarah and Mick (the irish girls and a a token bloke we picked up along the way!) were on the same tour so we entertained ourselves as we wandered through the mines...
it was a very slow tour... with so many tours running at the same time we'd move on to a section the have to wait 10-15mins before we could move on the the next...
the mines themselves were kind of cool. to think that it's all salt.
all the statues, etc. it's the colour of stone all grey and could almost pass for stone, totally not what i was expecting it to look like.
It was pretty impressive to think that every thing was made compltely by hand and out of salt.. as you make your way around you go though little chambers. The highlight was the chapel of the Blessed kinga, which is absolutely huge 54m by 17m and 12m high... you had to purchase a photo card to take pictures... but we snuck in some photos without paying of course! it took 30 years to complete it.
contemplated licking the walls as we wandered around! (they were salty!)
it was a pleasant temperature as we were down 125m under ground, winding our way down hundreds of stairs... once we reached the bottom, we were beamed up in lifts made for 3 but crammed with atleast 9 people in each! that went shooting back to the surface!
and adventure to be sure of!
the whole tour took about 4hours, found our guide and headed back to the bus, to head back to the city.
wandered around the city by myself for a bit, strolling through the markets looking at all the lovely things for sale, then back down to the castle where i stood for ages trying to get a picture of the dragon breathing fire!
Before realising it was time to head back up and shower and get ready...
met up with the others who were still trying to pack all their belongings. decided to head off for a polish salad dinner at the local salad bar, just off the square. there were all sorts of hungarian salads to be sampled, and loads of greenery. it was delicious. you chose the size of your plate then got to go along and pick random things to put on it... all in polish so none of us had any idea what we were eating... but it was good.
the setting was quaint, it was all outside kind of like a mini beer garden, all covered under these huge awnings
and it was full of a mixture of polish people and tourists, so it was a nice blend of accents and languages being spoken.
From there we headed back to the little shop we found to spend the last of our zlotty's, ran into some indians playing these pipe instruments, but the kid in the crowd dancing to it was hilarious! definitely stole their show..
headed back to the hostel and just lazed about for an hour before Renata and i departed for the train station.
Arrived to see that the train to prague was already there (the irish people that we'd left still packing in the hostel moments before were meant to be on that train!)
our train then came in so we boarded that one, and stood looking out the window to see if they made it or not..
couldn't see them... but hopefully they made it..
Sharing our sleeping compartment with a strange little lady who has no grasp of the english language!
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