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.

Salzburg/Garmisch Trip: Hallein Salt Mines

About a year ago, one of our friends from Misawa sent out a message suggesting we should have a Misawa Friends Reunion here in Europe, since many of us got stationed in this part of the world after Japan. It was not an easy task—to organize an overseas reunion—but after many conversations later, six families, including us, made plans to meet in Germany for a few days at the beginning of June. This reunion received a proper name Epic Misawa Reunion Europe, or EMRE for short.

Since Germany is not a daytrip for us, we have decided to add another trip on top of our reunion. So we flew to Munich (with Easy Jet), hired a car and drove to Salzburg (a little over 1 hr and 40 min away). Our plan was to stay in Salzburg area for three nights and then drive to Garmisch (Bavaria) to meet our friends and stay three more nights.

This time, we got lucky with our manual-transmission car and our ride was super smooth, unlike Sardinia.  So glad Robert knows how to drive a stick shift, or we’d be paying double for a rented car anywhere in Europe.

Awesome roads in Germany and Austria. And driving with a GPS and clear road signs is a BREEZE even in a foreign country, as long as you figure out what Ausfarht means (a highway exit).

We checked in at our super cute, perfectly sized apartment that was 20 min drive from Salzburg, drove around our little village and Bad Reichenhall, and after a couple of failed attempts (apparently we arrived on a Bavarian holiday, so some restaurants were closed) we found a traditional German place with spatzel and everything. The food was great, but quite heavy on meet and gravy. I also found German food to be much saltier than British food, or maybe it’s just me.

The next morning, our adventures began. We bought a Salzburg card that included a ton of museums/sightseeing places for one price for our family and lasted 72 hours. Well, what it didn’t tell us on the website before I purchased it was that the only two places to pick it up was the Tourist Office at the Salzburg Train Station or Mozart Plaza in the center. We were not going to any of those place just yet, as we were going to visit places (included on that car) that are located out of town. So after tracking down a Tourist Office in our village, Robert attempted to figure out how we could get our cards, but he came back empty-handed to the car. So I went in, driven to get what I needed…and I told the story in my broken German/English of how inconvenient it would be to go pick up the cards in those two locations. I am not sure what I did differently than Robert, but somehow the ladies at the office were merciful enough to call those other Tourist Offices and issue me those Salzburg cards right there on the spot! Amazing!!! We were very grateful.

Although this little problem, set our plans back a bit, we still managed to get to Hallein Salt Mine (30 min away) by around 11 am.  You buy tickets for a tour at a certain time, and unfortunately, we had to wait for about 50 min for the next available one. So we wondered around (in the rain) through the Celtic Village exhibit, that was actually closed and not really impressive.

Then, before our tour started, everyone got to dress in this traditional miners’ uniform, which was exciting and cheesy at the same time.

More pictures in these funny outfits. I believe Katya was exchanging her trousers at this moment as they turned out to be too big and were falling off her.

We were told it was going to be around 10-13 C inside the mine, so we dressed warmly.

On the way to the inside of the mine, we had an opportunity to step outside and see the gorgeous view of the valley. It was cloudy but green and beautiful.

Hallein Salt Mine is the oldest open salt mine in the world! Salt is what made Salzburg and this area super rich back in the 17th-18th century. It was salt that made it possible for the archbishops of that time to invest the money made from salt trade into building beautiful churches, castles and fortification in Salzburg.

A pretty fast miniature train takes you inside the mine. It went so fast that I actually had to put my hood on as my ears were hurting from the wind-haha.

Our tour guide led the group through long corridors to different interesting places. One of them was the underground crossing of the border, how cool is that? Germany to Austria.

We also got to taste concentrated salty water that was dripping from this statue like from a fountain.

A boat ride on an underground lake? Why not? Music and flowing music added to the whole experience of “ooooohhhh”.

But the highlight of the trip for kids were these slides. You don’t use any equipment to slide down these railings, just your bottom. Robert was trying to get a picture of me and Mark coming down, but we were too fast, he said. So that blurry figure—that’s me.

Overall impression—Thumbs Up! It was not the cheapest attraction, but very well organized and informative.

Sorry, Robert I only had one picture of you at the salt mine. I know you were there, behind the camera.

We were done with Hallein around 2 pm, after which we headed to explore the area closer to Salzburg.

Bye for now!

Lyana.