Poland: Krakow-Wieliczka Salt Mines

On our last day in Krakow, we decided to be brave and take the bus to the Wieliczka Salt Mines located a bit out of town. It was an adventure figuring out what bus to take, where the bus stop is, bus schedule and most importantly what sort of bus ticket to buy and where. But we managed, despite the fact that the bus driver only spoke Polish and waved us in to figure out the ticket machine on our own. The bus ride was super easy after all--25 minutes and we were right next to the entrance to the salt mines.

These salt mines are very famous in the area. You only can get down there with the tour, of course. Salt was discovered here in the 13th century and ever since it's been a working salt mine. The depth of the mine is 327 meters (over 1000 feet) and the length is 287 km (178 miles)--so it is HUGE! But the touring route is just over 2 miles long.

To start our tour, we had to go down the stairs...deep, deep underground. I almost got dizzy going around and around the stairwell, it seemed like 50 stories down. 

Finally we got to the first level where the tour began. I was still feeling dizzy:) 

Robert took most of the pictures as he likes to stay at the back of the group. This time our group consisted of maybe just 10 people, so didn't really make a huge difference, but anyway--he was taking pictures.

So what made this salt mine different from, let's say, the one near Salzburg was all the many intricate statues underground carved out of salt. Here was the first statue dedicated to Nicolaus Copernicus. 

More statues depicting a historic event of one of the queens finding her wedding ring in the salt mine (or so does the legend goes).

And statues of miners working hard. 

We walked, and walked...

Some exhibits showed us how mining was done through out the centuries. 

King Kazimierz--Polish beloved king. 

Salt looks gray actually. And the walls probably taste salty, but we decided not to lick them.

The tour guide put the kids to work to get one of the salt buckets up to our level. 

And here we could have a taste of the water, incredibly salty.

Towards the end of the tour, we came to this amazing open hallway. Lots of beautiful sculptures and wall carvings here. The chandeliers are made of salt crystals as well. 

The story of Jesus is a common theme. 

Everything made of salt.

The Last Supper.

Yay, one proper family picture from Poland...inside a salt mine.

A few more halls--this one with a clean lake in it. 

Almost to the end of the tour. 

If you get lost...it's almost not possible to find your way back on your own--there are so many passages and very few signs.

Robert wanted to follow the wooden stairs and go somewhere adventurous but he wasn't allowed:)

Meet our youngest tour guide. He doesn't look very happy to be doing his job, does he?

Finally, we figured out we had to wait in line to get the elevator back up to surface. Our elevator waiting area was 135 meters deep underground.

We got separated right when we got into the three elevators, so Mark and I were in one crammed elevator, and Robert with the kids (they almost sent the kids on their own, but Robert cried out "My Children!" to the Polish lady:)))). This is me, getting off the elevator.

Oh, it was a breath of fresh air to be back on top! And it was snowing!! 

We had to let the kids play with the snow for a bit before heading back to Krakow

We got back to Krakow without any further adventures, ate more food and various places, grabbed our stored luggage and made our way to the train that took us to the airport. We had a very late night flight out of Poland (21:50) but at least it was on time and we landed at Stansted around 23:20. We know the drill--hurry as fast you can to the customs control as we have to stand in line always with ALL PASSPORTS people; and it takes forever. We were a bit concerned because Robert accidentally left his military ID in his computer the day when we left for Krakow, and he needs his ID to proof that we are here living legally, since he doesn't have a government passport like the rest of us do. So we had to ask one of the people at the clinic to scan his ID and email it to us, and then it was up to the border control security person whether or not they would accept that. On top of that, Robert didn't have his military orders printed. Yes, we were a bit worried it might take awhile before they let him back into the country, although he had his tourist passport with him.

Anyway, we got extremely lucky--as we were the first people to arrive at the passport control for ALL PASSPORTS (somehow), we could pick which officer to come up to. Robert quickly calculated who'd be most merciful--a woman in her 50-60s:) He is so charming with older women:)). Anyway, everything worked out great. The officer accepted all our documents digitally and having my military ID with Robert's name on it helped. We were through passport control within five minutes.

We had a meet and greet service for parking, so the car was delivered to us almost immediately and we were home by 1 am. 

The end of another whirlwind trip.

Lyana.

Poland: Late Evening in Krakow

Short vacations like this are fun:). Yeah, it's work too. And they could be cold. But mostly it is fun because we break out from our routine and spend soooooo much time as a family together. Some moments are better than others, of course:) Like this one below:

Why, oh why, Mark? EVERY. SINGLE. SELFIE. We couldn't get a better shot than that. 

After dinner on Sunday night we went walking around this beautiful city. 

Although it looks kind of empty, it wasn't really late just cold. Very few tourists brave the weather, thus giving us more freedom to roam around. All cafes and cozy hot chocolate places are still open of course.

You can see this beautiful building in the background. It's the Clothes Hall that used to be a traditional clothes market for centuries and now is a collection of dozens of souvenir shops. 

The legend among the local university students goes that whoever hops on one foot three times around this monument at night will successfully go through their Polish exams (or something like that). Alex, Katya and Mark tried to complete the task, but to no avail.

Awe...almost like a winter fairytale. 

Her is our horse carriage...waiting for us. 

The kids kept themselves nice and warm by running and jumping around. 

Haha, I think (I hope) Katya took this picture (and not Robert). Even mannequins are pretty in Poland.

And then....And then...we stumbled upon a big orange tent where people, supposedly were watching the European Handball Championship games. Poland was hosting it and matches were broadcast all over for fans to enjoy. Wait, you don't know what handball is? In case you are interested...

That night, it turned out, Poland was playing Macedonia and many fans gathered together in this tent to watch the game on the big screen. But that's not all! They had a bunch of free entertainment inside as well. Kids had a blast! 

Like who wants to do some bungee running?

Common, Alex, grab the ball!

Oh yeah? 

Almost!!

Got it!

You want one too? 

The kids did the running thing for like twenty minutes. Then we moved on to a few more games, but didn't take pictures. 

While kids were doing some Wii Kinect games, I could watch a short panorama video about Poland. Thanks, Robert for this picture. 

I got you back. The picture actually fits you well.

And thus our one night in Krakow turned out to be not all outside and sightseeing after all. It's fun to mix things up sometimes, right?

Lyana.

Pierogi, Nalisniki, Kremowka, Oh My!

I rarely devote one special post for food in foreign countries, but man....Polish food is good. 

Besides their famous pierogi (which I know it's just another name for VARENIKI, whatever they say:)), they have so many other yummy homey foods. I love anything with mushrooms, so it was great to be able to try new things with mushrooms on the side, in the gravy and in whatever. Robert tried the Polish sausage and cutlets, while the kids ordered crepes called nalisniki half a dozen times. 

The food was cheap too. We could have a meal for all five of us under $15. Or a dinner for under $35 which had not happened in a very-very long time (we do drink only water though).

There was this one place that I wanted us to go for dinner, called U Babci Malini (At Grandma Malina's). So I read about it in Rick Steve's Krakow book. Good thing I read the part where it said that this inexpensive restaurant could be entered through a courtyard on Slawkowska St. That's the same street where we were staying. So we walked along our street, saw the sign for the restaurant, but it wasn't lit up, there were no windows or anything. I remembered the part about the courtyard, so we tried the heavy door--and it worked. 

We walked pass the freaky sculptures down the empty hallway and somehow got outside again. 

Then we saw this sign for the restaurant again but with no sign of it being open or anything. 

We decided to keep going and went down the stairs, still not sure if the place is open. But it was! 

It just has this "hush-hush" sort of atmosphere about it on the outside, but on the inside it's nice, warm, cozy and decorated like a vintage traditional kitchen. 

The food was filling and very inexpensive. We AGAIN ordered too much (that never happens in England, by the way) and had to take some home for a late evening snack.

Sometimes you just have to be adventurous with these kind of places. 

Oh yeah! One more thing! This is not about Polish food. We were looking for a place to eat lunch on our last day in Krakow and randomly saw a Japanese Fast Food Place that said "TAKOYAKI". As soon as the boys saw "takoyaki" we knew we had to stop by.  Remember, takoyaki are balls made of octopus. Mark and Alex LOVE them and we never can find them easily here (except on the streets of London in China Town for twice the price). 

We chatted with the owner while waiting for our takoyaki. He and his friend are Japanese, from Hokkaido. He couldn't believe we actually lived in Aomori-Ken:) He married a Polish woman and now lives in Krakow. They opened this Kyoto Takoyaki just a month ago and hoping that more Polish people will try this yummy quick snack. He said there are many Japanese in Krakow, actually, and that Japanese restaurants are quite tasty. Wish we had more time in Krakow to try more Japanese foods as well:))

This is the only picture we have from our favorite restaurant to get breakfast crepes and pireogies--Domowe Pryzsmaki.

Finally, we stopped by one of the dessert places and bought this delicious Kremowka. We actually bought four of them and had a hard time finishing them in two days. They were so yummy but so filling and huge! This is the Pope's favorite dessert:)

I also enjoyed lots of sweet memories from my childhood like hrustiki and waffle tart...I wish I could have brought more home to England! 

On our last day in Krakow we seriously just ate through our whole day. Again, great food, great hospitality (except the grumpy old woman at the dessert counter who didn't want to try to help us since we didn't speak Polish:) She probably knew I was Ukrainian since I do look like one). 

Lyana.