Krakow, Poland

We flew from Vilnius to Krakow via Warsaw on LOT airlines. The flights went smoothly and we arrived at our hotel at about 6pm. We took a short orientation walk around the Old Town and then set about finding somewhere to eat dinner. We settled on a small vegetarian restaurant where Mom had kofta curry and I had a mexican stew. Dinner, with water, rang in at about 12 CAD which set a new record for cheap eats!

As at all our previous stops we were excited to check out breakfast on our first morning. This hotel got points for having the largest coffee cups and nutella. After breakfast we set out on a private walking tour of the Old Town of Krakow. Several of the usual stops on the tour were closed because they are churches and don’t allow visitors on Sunday mornings. However, we had an excellent guide and she gave us advice regarding which churches to visit in the afternoon. We were able to visit the Wawel Cathedral which was used for coronations of kings since the 13th century. We also saw where Pope JPII lived when he was a bishop in Krakow and Wawel Hill which is the site of a castle. Interestingly Krakow was not destroyed during WWII so it has maintained much of its character.

After our tour we had lunch at a local “Milk Bar.” These were canteens run by the state during the communist era providing cheap filling meals to the poorest citizens. There are still a few remaining. We split one order of cheese/potato pierogies and one order of meat pierogies. Given that we were in Poland it seemed that eating pierogies was a necessity. After lunch we visited the church of St Francis (above) which had very impressive Art Nouveau stained glass work and St Mary’s Church with an impressive high alter. After being on our feet for the day we retired to our hotel room to recharge with a cryptic crossword.

The next morning we went to visit the Wieliczka salt mine. The mine was operational from the 13th century until 1996. You can only enter the mine with a guide but instead of goining a large English group we had arranged to have our own guide for just the two of us. This was nice since we were actually able to hear the guide and we were able to move slightly faster than some of the larger groups.

We visited the upper three (of nine) levels of the mine and reached a maximum depth of 135 metres. There were many chambers in which the miners had carved out statues depicting folk stories and kings etc. There were also several chapels and of course a restaurant and souvenier shop. Below is a statue of Nicholas Copernicus carved out of salt.

In the afternoon we walked out of the Old Town and into the Jewish quarter. Later we went back to our favourite vegetarian restaurant from the first night and went to a church for a one hour classical concert featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

The next morning we visited the Czartoryski Museum which holds a collection of various items from Etruscan to Egyptian to Polish artifacts. The main attraction is the Da Vinci painting Lady with an Ermine which I enjoy because the subject’s name was Cecilia. Then we got some Krakow “bagels” and headed to the train station to catch our train the Warsaw.