European Vacation

Well I'm officially another year older. As birthday's go, it wasn't my most festive one given that I was alone in Krakow and had a cold, but neverhteless I aged another year and had a nice day regardless. To those that remembered my birthday thanks for the best wishes, to those that didn't, don't worry! No really, no hard feelings I know you'll make it up to me next year! (And to those whose birthdays I've forgotten or possibly will forget, oops,sorry!)

Krakow is a beautiful city and it's very easy to fall in love with it. On Saturday morning, I took a tour to visit a Salt Mine which is near the city. I took a tour, just like I had done to Auschwitz, as I didn't really want to try and make my own way there given my lack of Polish skills, who knows where I would have ended up! The mini bus picked me up from the hostel which was handy, at first I thought I was the first stop, it turned out that I was the only one actually taking the tour on that day so I had the entire bus to myself, it felt a little strange!

The Salt Mine is the oldest in the world though they stopped mining for salt ten years ago. To begin with you have to climb down about 300 or so stairs to reach the first level which is about 60 metres underground. The Mine is basically just a tourist attraction now and it's amazing to walk through the mine and see all the statues that, in most cases, ordinary miners have created.

The entire mine is about 2 kms by 10 kms and includes about 300 kms of passages. The tour itself only visits a small section of mine but includes some spectacular areas, including a small chapel and a huge underground church which is often called a cathedral. As the photo below shows its quite impressive, especially when you consider that the statues and wall decorations were done by three men. There is even a picture of the Last Supper made entirely from salt.

I was pleasantly surprised when I walked around Krakow as I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. It's absolutely gorgeous and there is a nice mix of history and present day. The main sqaure is very popular both during the day and night. While there also seems to be a lot of great nightlife in the old town, including bars and pubs it doesn't appear sleazy or dangerous and I had no apprehension of walking around by myself (I didn't actually check out any of the places as I've been suffering with a cold for most of the week, but everyone seemed to rave about them). Krakow must also be a shoppers paradise as there were a stack of shops ranging from small boutiques to well known outlets.

Not far from the old town is the castle which is also quite beautiful.

I don't think I can actually say a bad word about Krakow as I think it's a fantastic city! I would definately recommend anyone to visit it if they ever got the chance and if I ever get the chance again, I'll certainly come back for another visit! I did also want to upload a couple of photos which I took of the main sqare at night but unfortunately this PC doesn't allow me to upload photos from my camera so I'll include them in my next blog when I'll write about Warsaw.