Another morning, another train ride…
this time to the town of Wieliczka, known for one of the world’s oldest salt mines, dating back to the 1200s. When I get off at my stop, however, it feels like a ghost town. Not a soul in sight, and the train station is completely boarded up:
It does feel a little bit like I’m the last person left on Earth, but I know the Wieliczka Salt Mine is a tourist attraction so it’s got to be around here somewhere… Ten minutes later there are a few cars on the road and some squirrels playing on the street. I’m debating my position against tour groups in my head (and losing I might add), but then I reach this incredible scene at some park, with another single soul on the bench, and I just know this path I’ve taken this morning is exactly where I’m meant to be…
And then finally…solitude is gone:
A few basic facts about this mine: depth of 327 meters and length of 300 kilometers. The 3km tourist route makes up less than 1% of the mine’s passages.
The statues and figures below, just two out of so many, were all carved out of rock salt by miners and artists:
The carvings look more like a matte, grayish granite than white. But the salt deposits on the ceilings and walls of the mine look like this:
The tour, which starts with 387 steps down narrow wooden stairs into the mine, is quite pleasant especially since it’s so warm outside. But it’s packed in here, and again, it does feel like a cattle call just as at Auschwitz. Patience, however, does pay off at the end when we reach the large chamber that’s the Saint Kinga’s Chapel (101 meters underground)…everything you see here is carved out of salt, including the magnificent chandeliers:
It’s such a cool place, in every sense of the word. But what I really love is the undeground lake:
This mine, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, stopped commercial mining in 1996 due to flooding and low demand. Nowadays you can rent some of the rooms for special events. They’ll even do weddings.
By the end of the tour we are about 135 meters underground. We gather in a small waiting room for the “bullet” elevator up to sunlight. The conductor promises us the ride is the best part of the entire tour.
He manages to fit about 10 of us inside the elevator and whoosh, 30 seconds later it’s over. It feels a little bit like flying.
If I had my way, I’d just be riding that elevator up and down all day long! But no such luck, they’ve got a long line of tourists waiting to get out of the dark. I really do not know how those miners adapted to living underground for so long.
Not so surprisingly the ride takes us immediately into the gift store. I’ve seen the salt lamps all around Krakow already, and I already got to taste the salt inside the mine (yes, by licking the wall) (no, I was not the only person doing it) (fine, if you insist, I was the only adult doing it…in my group anyway) so nothing is screaming at me to buy. But I will add another coin to my collection…
Tags: Krakow, Saint Kinga’s Chapel, UNESCO World Heritage site, Wieliczka Salt Mine
As I’d mentioned before, there are several sightseeing routes in Krakow, and today I’ll show you a part of the Droga Królewska (the Royal Route) that I finally get to. This route has witnessed many coronation processions and parades and takes you from one end of the medieval town to the other, so it’s quite easy to get distracted and end up on another route. Anyway, we’ll start at St. Florian’s Gate, named after the patron saint of Poland…
and make our way up Wavel Hill…
to reach the grounds of Wavel Castle:
It’s definitely tourist central here, and on a sunny day there are queues everywhere. But this is my kind of Disneyworld!
Tags: Droga Królewsk, Krakow, Poland, St. Florian's Gate, Wavel Castle, Wavel Hill
The train ride back from Auschwitz is somber, but part of the deal with traveling is that you have to see the good with the bad. And sometimes the ugly is an important lesson. But anyway, by the time I get back to Krakow’s city center, dusk is quickly on my heels. I manage to get a couple of shots of the National Theater (now an opera house)…
As I’m thinking about what to eat tonight, I run across this kielbasa van. Let’s just say it’s a Polish food truck and the only item on the menu is the grilled sausage:
Shall we take a closer look at the kielbasa?
…yeah no, I have no desire to going back to being a carnivore.
So I keep walking toward Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter, where I have no luck entering any of the synagogues that are now closed. There are many bars and restaurants here, and as night falls around me, I see tourists and locals alike ducking into dark venues for a meal. But I spot a long, noisy line in front of this stand and I have to go investigate.
It turns out to be a sandwich shop that specializes in the zapiekanka, which is a halved baguette grilled to perfection with melted cheese, mushrooms, chives, corn, ham or any kind of topping you can think of. It’s cheap street food that you can find all around town, but according to the people standing in line, this location is the place to get it.
The sandwich is the size of Florida (most of the ones you find around town are not this big) and as delicious as it is, by the time I’m half way done I’m exhausted. Need a stomach pump. But I can see why this stand is getting all the business while the nearby competing shops remain empty.
I need a long walk.
Tags: Kazimierz, kielbasa, Krakow, zapiekanka
In January of 2009 I wrote about the concentration camp at Breendonk. It was an experience, for me, like no other. But I knew then that my treks across Europe would eventually lead me here, and with a little bit of mental preparedness I hop the train to Oświęcim, a Polish city that was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939 and renamed as Auschwitz.
Konzentrationslager Auschwitz consisted of a base camp at Auschwitz I, an extermination camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and a labor camp at Monowitz-Buna (or Auschwitz III).
More than 40 other sub-camps rounded out the network of human destruction. This sign, inside one of the buildings, gives visitors a chilling account of the reach of the genocide movement:
The Auschwitz-Birkenau camps are open to the public for free (the shuttle between the two camps is also free), but between May and October visitors may only visit Auschwitz I with a guided tour before 3pm due to the high traffic. If I could change one thing about my visit, it would be to do the tour without the crowds because it feels like a cattle call. We are rushed around in groups of 30, from place to place, without any time to read or process the vast information found here. Yet at the same time, the crowds today provide an eery sensation of how the camps must have been like with so many people sardined inside confined spaces.
And inside these walls…
are things you wish aren’t there. Like human hair,
lots of human hair,
shoes,
lots of shoes,
tons of shoes,
glasses,
and other personal effects
that once belonged to people, of the same human race as you and me, who paid a very high price for their existence. They were stripped of all their belongings, their dignity, their humanity.
I lag behind my group so that I could take a few pictures that are not blocked by the back of strangers’ heads…
…and mainly to digest the severity of what took place here. I have to escape the noises of the crowds and the sounds of the gravel crushing under my feet to answer the questions in my head…why, why, why, how, how, how, how did all this happen under our noses?
Birkenau was built in 1941 to offset the congestion at Auschwitz I,
and it is estimated that 90% of the prisoners died at Birkenau. It was originally intended to serve as a camp for prisoners of war, but by 1942 it was simply a death camp. Within a space of 140 hectares, it consisted of some 300 barracks and buildings, 13 kilometers of drainage ditches, 16 kilometers of barbed wire fencing, and numerous gas chambers and crematoria…
It’s hard to fathom the dire living conditions in these camps, even while standing inside one of these wooden barracks. The cold is brutal in the winter and the heat unbearable in the summer. Imagine living in congested and unsanitary conditions with inadequate nutrition and clothing. Was it any better to stay alive like this inside these prisons than to be exterminated? Is a slow death any more humane than a quick one? My tour guide tells us that some women hid their babies in these urinal drainages to spare their lives…
and I just wonder if there could ever be any forgiveness.
At the end of the tour, we reach the crematoria that were blown up shortly before the camps’ liberation:
Near here is a memorial where I find people of all ages milling about. Some are weeping, and others are celebrating life.
Above the gate to Auschwitz it is carved Arbeit macht frei, which means work makes you free.
The irony is rich.
Tags: Auschwitz, Birkenau, Breendonk, Monowitz-Buna, Nazi Germany, Oświęcim
One of Krakow’s most well-known citizens is the late Karol Wojtyła, or Pope John Paul II. His presence is still very palpable here…
and I see more priests and nuns making their pilgrimage here than anywhere else outside of the Vatican…
The churches here are open, as in most places (except Bratislava), and sometimes I even happen into a mass,
followed by more random walks around the city:
Here’s the Collegium Maius, the oldest building (circa 15th century) at the University of Krakow:
And here’s how you can tour Krakow if you’re not in the mood to walk. These “golf” carts will stop in front of important buildings or structures and a recording in the language of your choice is played at each stop:
But I’d promised you food yesterday, so let me take you to the Bar Mleczny, which is a sort of cafeteria with traditional Polish food:
There is only a Polish menu,
so I stand there for a very long time, looking around at what others have ordered…
and I know this the chlodnik, a beetroot soup mixed with sour cream, dill and gherkin and served cold–all things I cannot eat:
Luckily an English woman takes pity on me and tries to translate a few things for me from the menu. She tells me she used to be a vegan but found it too difficult to maintain that lifestyle. I tell her I’d really like to give the pierogies a go, even if from her description a lot of them come with cream and other icky dairy substances. But do I let a silly cow get in my way?
I opt for a salty version, which is filled with ground pork. I scrape the meat out but at least the marination from the meat has left the dumpling pouches quite flavorful:
I also try the fruity version, filled with bilberries, and it actually has no taste. Neither sweet nor sour nor salty. I have less luck scraping the cream away though…I know too well what she meant by difficult lifestyle (sigh):
My favorite is actually this side dish with three types of sauerkraut (well, one is carrot and not cabbage):
This lukewarm fruity tea is lovely to photograph and I see it in several places around town,
but it’s the tatanka (apple juice +zubrowka, or bison grass flavored vodka, hence tatanka, which means bison) I’ve been told to try. We’ll see if I find it on this trip.
Anyway, this meal is not too successful for me. I think you’d really have to be a carnivore and dairyvore to appreciate Polish food.
Remember all those pretzels I mentioned yesterday? There are also these pastry-looking things that are sold everywhere, and I suspect they must be delicious because they are relatively expensive compared to the other items:
Now where the heck was that dictionary I asked you to bring? This is no pastry! It’s smoked cheese! With a very, very pungent aroma that seems to seep into my skin. I wash my hands twice and can still smell it. It’s probably because I can’t get rid of the taste in my mouth.
Where is that tatanka! I’m going to need to wash that cheesy aftertaste with one of these…
Tags: Bar Mleczny, beetroot, bilberries, chlodnik, Collegium Maius, Karol Wojtyla, Krakow, pierogies, Pope John Paul II, sauerkraut, tatanka
