It’s time to check out from our hotel in Warsaw and catch the train to Krakow. It’s a shame to be leaving Warsaw as we’ve found that despite initial reservations based on stories we’d heard about the city, we’ve had a good stay here and really enjoyed ourselves.
We finish packing after breakfast and, large newspaper in hand, we head to the station. We walk there and make sure we allow ourselves more than enough time as we’re not sure how clear the signs are going to be to find the right platform. On our way we pass a large prefab with some astounding graffiti covering the entire end wall.
At the station we locate a departures board and are able to find our train, which appears to be running on time. Platform 4 it says. As we make our way downstairs we look again for another departures board, wanting to verify what we’ve just seen. We do and then make our way onto Platform 4. There the train isn’t even listed yet as we’re still quite early, so we find a space and settle our bags down. It’s confusing, though, because there are a lot of other numbers apart from the number 4 on the signs here. It’s all in Polish and it takes us a while to figure it out, but it seems that each Platform has two ‘tracks’ and each track has three or more ‘sectors’. I’m sure this makes it easier for people to work out exactly where to stand on long platforms for their train, but for us it just increases our anxiety as – with there being so many numbers – maybe we got our initial ‘4’ wrong? Alice is about to head onto the main concourse to check the main board when our train finally pops up on the board on the platform.
It’s just a three hour journey to Krakow so we’re looking forward to arriving around lunchtime. We’ve been booking first class seats where possible (and affordable), and we find ourselves in a six-seater booth with seats opposite each other by the window. Another couple are in the booth, and when they see us swapping seats so that we can use the netbook without the glare of the morning sun, they ask us if we would be happy to swap seats with them so that we are out of the glare and that they can use the light from the window for reading their books. We agree and manoeuvre ourselves around the tight central area.
Settled in our seats, the man strikes up a conversation with us. He tells us that he’s from Belgium but has been visiting Warsaw with his mother. She had been invited back to take part in the WP celebrations because, when she was 20, she took part in the Uprising. It’s fascinating to hear a bit of her story, including the fact that after the Uprising she was a political prisoner. It’s quite saddening to hear that having being freed after the war she was not able to go back to Poland as she would have been arrested – the Communist government regarded the member of the Uprising as traitors. It was only after independence that she was able to return.
We get out in Krakow and make our way downstairs under the platforms. Here we find a subterranean run of stalls which remind of the train station near the airport in Budapest – a Star Wars cantina full of odd characters and shady activities – and of the Attaba book market. It takes us a moment to see the sign to the exit and Scotty is the first to spy it on the floor. We follow the signs to the main station, and when we are above ground realise that it’s undergoing major works with most things being covered in dust sheets and only a few signs still visible.
Our hotel is not far from the station and so it’s really not worth attempting public transport. We set to dragging the case for the 10 minute walk, knowing that as it’s only just after noon we’re unlikely to be able to check in. The hotel, however, is very helpful and announces that our room is ready so we head there to dump our bags. The room is a pleasant enough room but, although it has AC (one of our requirements after reading reviews of how hot and stuffy Krakow can get in the summer, although with the current weather we probably needn’t have bothered) there is no sign of the remote control. Also, the safe is playing up – at first it’s locked itself, but then on getting the key from Reception to unlock it again we find that the batteries have run out. Not wanting to cause a fuss we use our own batteries, but the next day find that actually it’s probably the contacts that are flimsy as these batteries stop working too. Despite this being one of the less fancy hotels we’re staying in, it’s also one of the more expensive thanks to Krakow’s popularity with tourists. We’re pleased that we still have the majority of our cash left from Warsaw thanks to being able to buy most things on card, as we think we’re going to need it here.
We head out and our first task is to find something to eat. After a lovely sunny morning on the train it’s grey outside and we have to unstrap our waterproofs from the bag as soon as we leave the hotel. It’s just a short shower and soon it’s clear again. We’re hopeful that the weather will stay as ‘showers’ rather than the thunderstorms we experienced in Warsaw.
We quickly find ourselves in the Old Town centre – thankfully the scale on the map here is a lot more in our favour – and start a slow hunt for food. The Old Town is truly old, as it wasn’t destroyed by the Nazis. Apparently that is attributed to Hitler declaring that he quite liked Krakow, although the main square did receive the misfortune of being named after him during the occupation.
Our hunt for food is sped up by a rain shower and we dash into one of the nearest places on the main square. It actually turns out to be a good choice and Alice has a sandwich for lunch whilst Scotty tries one of the Krakow delicacies of meat dumplings. These look – and taste – a little bit like Chinese dumplings.
The shower has stopped and so we head on to task two of the day: getting some tours booked. We know that we want to go to Auschwitz (as we feel we can’t be so close and not visit) and we have heard excellent stories of visiting the a nearby Salt Mine, so we want to book a tour there too. The guide book (In Your Pocket again), online searches, and leaflets at the hotel show us that there are dozens of tour companies that offer these trips. In the end we just opt for one that has some good reviews and is noted in a few places as the best value for money, so we head towards the office of Cracow City Tours.
We find the office opposite a memorial to the Polish Uprising that is adorned with fresh wreaths. Inside we talk to the bookings manager about what we want. We know that they offer both of these tours on one day, but we’re thinking this would be too much and that we should spread them over the two full days we will have in the city. However, She tells us though that we could actually go to the Salt Mine this afternoon if we wanted as a tour leaves in an hour and a half. We look at each other and then nod. This seems like a great way to make the most of having an afternoon without travelling, and means we’ll have more time in the city. With the promise of more rain showers later in the afternoon it also seems sensible to go underground!
To celebrate booking the tours, we go into the newly opened shop next door and get a milk shake made from chocolate bars (we’re assured that this is the first shop of its kind in Krakow but we’re familiar with the idea after many visits to Shake Away in Kingston – yum!). Returning briefly to the hotel to pick up a sweater – the mine is apparently quite cold – we head back to the tour office and board the coach to the mine.
Our tour guide is everything you want – knowledgeable, charismatic, and funny. We’ve begun to realise that the Polish sense of humour is quite sarcastic and self-deprecating, and this appeals to us. They’re not afraid to laugh at the problems of their country, but are also keen to celebrate the positives. Our tour guide is also brutally honest. “Don’t buy anything in the cave. It’s overpriced and bad quality. You can’t get orange salt in this cave – anything orange is from Pakistan and processed in China. If you want real Polish salt, buy it in Krakow. The stuff they sell there is shit.”
Something we noticed in Warsaw, and which is also in evidence here in Krakow, is that the entire population of Spain appears to have moved to Poland for the summer. The hotel in Warsaw was full of Spaniards, and half the tour bus is made up of Spanish speakers. There are, however, plenty of English voices in their multiple dialects from America to Australia. Krakow appears to be quite a party town, and later in the evening we notice a much larger number of bars and clubs, and that drinks prices are about 25% cheaper than the capital. Krakow has certainly exploited this market – or the market has exploited Krakow – and it seems to be a key stop on the InterRail route if you choose to head into Eastern Europe. Consequently a lot of the people on our tour are backpackers – something that for this trip is not anything we’re particularly bothered about, but makes us a little nervous about how such a crowd might behave if they have also chosen to visit Auschwitz.
The coach journey is rather uneventful through the countryside, and Scott demonstrates his usual ability to fall asleep in a road vehicle. For some reason he can’t sleep on planes or trains, but put him in a car or a bus and he will doze off. It’s not a long sleep, though, as we soon arrive at the mine and after a brief break to go to the toilet we gather round our guide to descend into the mine.
We begin by walking down 200-plus wooden steps and emerge in a large chamber. The mine itself is the oldest working salt mine in the world, with the earliest excavations taking place in the 13th century. They’re not actively mining salt in the mine anymore but, in order to keep it open for tours they need to run the pumps to remove water. This comes out as a saline water from the salt still left in the rock, and just from the water being pumped out they’re able to extract 13 tonnes of salt a day. When you realise that the mine itself has over 300 kilometres of tunnels and that during our 2.5 hour tour we’ll barely cover 2km you really start to get a feel for the sheer size of the place.
The salt is old sea salt, caught within the rock as a layer but then broken into blocks as the Carpathian Mountains were formed. Consequently the salt is not found in seams, which results in the impressive appearance of the mine. After walking down the old search passages and transport routes you emerge into a large chamber, which is where the block of salt was found. When the miners found the salt they dug to the top of it and gradually worked their way down the block until they hit rock at the bottom and began a new search.
The salt gained from the mine made Poland an incredibly wealthy country in the medieval and early modern period. As warfare tactics demanded longer and longer sieges, it became more an more important to be able to provide your army with food that would last a long time. Salt was therefore an enormously valuable commodity, and was often worth more per gram than silver. Consequently whoever controlled the mine – in this case the king – was a very wealthy person. Salt revenues accounted for 1/3 of the entire royal budget at its height.
The tour wound around various corridors and chambers, some showing signs of water activity such as salt stalactites and stalagmites, or ‘cauliflowers’ that formed on the walls. The most impressive formations, however, were manmade. The miners often created statues and architectural features in old chambers, and the tour focused on showing these off. The most impressive was – by far – an enormous chapel created in the mid-19th Century by three miners and decorated by a fourth miner in the 20th Century with Biblical images and an astounding copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper chiselled straight into the salt. The chapel also houses a statue of Pope John Paul II, created in honour of his visit to Poland in 1999. Sadly he never made it into the cave as his health was too bad.
The mine also contains a number of large underground lakes, some of which are now being exploited by the mine as health retreats. The water is, understandably, incredibly salty and consequently deionises the air in the chambers very effectively. People with breathing problems can visit such chambers and basically just sit around there and breathe. Whether it works or not, we can’t be sure, but our tour guide swears by it.
The 2.5 hours of the tour goes by incredibly quickly. Some people are noticeably tired, but we feel quite energised. We muse that all the walking we’ve done over the past few days has conditioned us. But, of course, once we’re back on the bus Scott falls asleep again. It’s a road vehicle thing.
Back in Krakow it’s approaching dinner time, but we opt to wander the streets of the Old Town first. The weather has cleared up and so we find a bar selling locally brewed beer. It’s nice to sit on the street (Stolarska) and not get soaking wet. We like the beer glasses, too. The bottom has a rather cute engraving of a bear. As we sit, a parade of at least 40 backpackers walks past. We can’t imagine where they’ve come from (or where they and their roll mats are going), and it makes for a funny sight.
We’ve read very good things about a new restaurant in the city called Marmalado, so we head there for dinner. We get our first experience of the city’s amazing internal architecture as we are led deep inside the building to a table. Trying to find the bathroom was also an experience. Heading downstairs, a warren of passages and smaller dining rooms eventually lead to a bar. It turns out that the bathrooms are behind the elaborate gold doors down the corridors; we’d missed the subtle bronze triangle (male) and circle (female) that designated them as toilets.
The food is, again, superb. However, the portion size of the traditional potato pancakes we have as a starter would normally be enough for lunch, and result in us each failing to finish our main course. We decide an evening stroll is in order and so meander around the touristy Old Town looking at tat, and trying to memorise where the best ice cream places are for future ‘research’. We have read a lot about a particular Irish Bar as being a focus for Krakow’s expat population and, always keen to find out what it would be like to live somewhere from people who actually do it, we head there for a drink. We should, however, have thought about this a bit more. After all, a lot of expats in Cairo leave during the summer to go home. The expats in Krakow do the same, and so the bar is virtually deserted apart from a couple of Poles drinking Guinness and watching Manchester United suffer an embarrassing defeat. We do, however, pick up the city’s expat newspaper which makes for interesting reading.
On our way back to the hotel we see a superb trio of buskers playing classical organ works on accordions. Perhaps more impressive, though, is a wonderfully named shop.
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