12 November to 15 November 2023
We arrived in Warsaw, Poland by bus and did our normal thing in Europe of booking in for a free walking tour of old town. This started at the Nicholas Copernicus Statue at the Scientific Academy. Copernicus who tactfully and by including the pope was able to get away with suggesting that Earth was not the centre of the universe that everything rotated around, but that it was the sun. Galileo, only a short time later, was not so lucky. Our guide was funny and sarcastic and aggressively pro Warsaw over Krakow. (Introduced herself as ‘your slightly sarcastic tour guide Olivia’.) She was very knowledgeable and able to answer all questions. Would have helped that she was studying history at the main university.
The old town was beautiful but had an air of fakery about it. Warsaw was practically razed to the ground during WW2 and it was all rebuilt, as much as possible from original stone, but was to perfect to look real. Chopin was born here as well as Marie Curie, and Chopin’s heart was in a pillar in one of the churches.
Next we headed by train to Krakow. Krakow had a lot more to it and a lot more authentic feel. Thanks due to it being left alone in the war because the Germans treated it as one of their traditional towns and claimed it as their own. People here did not significantly fight back. Many well maintained old churches, clock towers and buildings. At one tower (St Mary’s), a fireman (7 of them on shift) , plays a trumpet every hour in all 4 directions of a tune that is cut short. Numerous legends abound as to why. The apparently true story according to our guide is the trumpet call was originally to tell the gatekeepers when it was safe to open and close the gates and for warnings. The myth goes that the trumpeter saw enemy approaching and was sounding the alarm when an arrow got him in the throat. Actually nobody knows for sure which is weird as to why they do it.
We finished the walking tour at the Wawel Royal Castle. Interesting architecture here, being that each new ruler built themselves a place of worship around the church, meaning it is surrounded by buildings of a bewildering array of architectural styles in a small area. In the doorway to the church they have bones that were found that they believed was a dragon. In reality the bones are from a mammoth and a whale. Mammoths were common in this area at one time. But the legend of a dragon was born and there is even a statue of a dragon near the river that breathes fire regularly and his cave nearby.
Next we went to the Salt Mines. Not to work, just to visit. Wieliczka Salt Mine was a labyrinth of tunnels and layers going down over 300m and 245km of tunnels. In 3 hours of going down stairs and walking along levels we saw only about 1% of the mine. It has been in use since the 13th century and was a whole complex with horses and other animals sometimes living their whole life down there. The last horse came out of the mine only about 20 years ago and lived out his life grazing above. We also took the extra Museum option to see a lot of the original equipment used including pulley systems for lowering and raising men, animals and equipment. The men were paid partly in salt as it was very valuable and they said it is where the term salary came from. Today the mine is full of salt sculptures and artwork. Afterwards we went to the cat cafe “Kociarnia” so that Elizabeth could get her cat fix.
Warsaw
Krakow
Wieliczka Salt Mine
