Krakow: Day 3

October 11th

We looked through the apartment again for Dan's wallet but did not find it.  Since the places it was most likely to be would not be open until the evening, we decided to just wander around before going on our planned tour.

This is "We are the First Brigade" memorial for the Polish struggle for independence in the early 20th century.  The statue has the first verse which translates to:

The Legions are a soldiers' melody,

The Legions are a forlorn hope,

The Legions are a soldier pride,

The Legions are a soldier fate.

I don't know who this guy is, but he looks impressive.  I mean he has an eagle and everything.

Barcelona by Adam Ziemianin

"I startled awake at the "Barcelona"

John the waiter nervously kept bringing beers to tables

as usually keeping the change for himself 

The pork jelly with vinegar

trembled in fear, all the harder,

that a snitch sat down at the window,

at the other table. 

I sat there with Wojtek Bellon

who still wanted to leave the "Barcelona"

dreamt of everlasting mountains, much closer to heaven 

something kept him here, though, by the glass of beer 

 Then Andrzej came

along with Zbyszek and Jurek Gizella

and their fellowship smiles 

Back then we used to have

passports to our young years

so very cheerful"

So long ago on this corner was a bar called the Barcelona (Bar Celona).  It was a fortress of intellectual thought for Kraków's artists, students, and philosophers.  

These are the people who give free tours of Kraków.  I was amused by their umbrellas.

We stumbled upon a random free art gallery above the Cloth Hall.

Szał (Ectasy) by Władysław Podkowiński (1866-1895)

I prefer to think of it as "The lady who loved her horse a little too much."

Sejm bociani (A Gathering of Storks) by Władysław Malecki (1836-1900)

Storks!

Wnętrze katedry na Wawelu (Interior of the Wawel Royal Cathedral) 

by Saturnin Świerzyński (1820-1885)

Portret generała Henryka Dembińskiego (Portrait of General Henryk Dembiński)

by Henryk Rodakiwski (1823-1894)

Also known as General who is tired of your nonsense and is disappointed in you.

Hetman Stefan Czarniecki by Leon Kapliński (1826-1873)

Also known as Hetman who is tired of your nonsense and is going to destroy you.

Mojżesz zabijający Egipcjanina (Moses killing an Egyptian) by Paweł Merwart (1855-1902)

I have no strong feelings about this painting, but I really like the frame.

Hołd pruski (The Prussian Homage) by Jan Matejko (1838-1893)

This painting is HUGE and has A LOT going on in it.

Also at the bottom center of the frame is this:

Dan says that the whoever commissioned this had a conversation like this:

So...the frame should have an eagle on it.

"An eagle, okay."

And it should have a sword.

"A....sword?"

Yeah, it should be holding a sword.

"Like the eagle is holding the sword or...how is it holding the sword."

No, like, with an arm or something.  I don't know.  You're the artist you figure it out.

When we left the art gallery, I saw this guy.  He was so tickled to have pigeons in his hands.  

We then headed off to meet our bus that would take us on our next adventure.

The fortified architectural complex from down by the river!

More art!  I think this one is for WWII...maybe....

Artsy interior shot.

We got coffee/tea while waiting for the bus.  I noticed, though not in order, that the zloty (Polish currency) depict a ruler gaining fantastic facial hair.

Okay, we boarded our bus and took a ride out to the Wieliczka Salt Mine.

The mine was originally built in the early 13th century.  

It produced table salt continuously up through 2007.  

The mine reaches a depth of 327 meters (1,073 feet) and is over 287 kilometers (178 miles) in length.   

There was an entrance for individual tourists and organized groups.  Dan determined that the Volls (my mom's family) would not be able to enter because they are a disorganized group.

This is more or less the path we took, just to give you an idea.  We walked for...3 hours I think.

We started by descending the Daniłowicz Shaft. 378 steps down 64 meters (210 feet) to Level I.

The steps seem never ending!

The entrance to the Holzbring Passage.

This is a mock up of how they used to get the salt out of the mine.  The salt is naturally grey.

We made our way to the Upper Urszula Chamber which was excavated in the mid 17th century.

We went through the passage that leads to the Kręciny Chamber.

This is a salt statue of Mikołaja Kopernika (Nicholas Copernicus).  

He was one of the first tourists to visit the mine and also a famous Pole.   

Salt salt salt.

In the Janowice Chamber there are life sized salt sculptures depicting a great Polish story.

The Hungarian Princess Kinga was to be married to Polish Prince Bolesław V the Chaste.  As part of her dowery, she asked her father for a lump of salt.  Her father gave her a salt mine in Máramaros where she threw her engagement ring from Bolesław into the salt shaft before leaving for Poland.

When she got to Poland she asked the people to dig until they found rock.  When the first salt rock was found, her engagement ring was found inside.  She is now the patron saint of salt miners.

We passed through the Spalone and the Sielec Chambers.

And came into the Casimir the Great Chamber.

Casimir looking over the model of the chamber.

King Kazimierza (Casimir) the Great was the king of Poland from 1330 to 1370.
He also set about laws that regulated the salt mine.

We then passed through the Pieskowa Skała Chamber to the Kunegunda Passage.

We stopped in the Holy Cross Chapel, which was exciting, until we came across Kinga's Chapel.

The chapel is 101 meters deep in the mine.  It is 31x15 meters in size. 

Stairs and tiles carved out of salt.

Religious statues carved out of salt.

Altars carved out of salt.

The last supper carved out of salt.

And Pope John Paul II, notable Pole, carved out of salt.

Turns out there's water down here (Barącz Chamber).  But it's super salty (surprise!).

Szczesc Boze (God Bless).  The mines greet each other with Szczesc Boze instead of Hello or Good Day because mining is dangerous and any day could be their last.

Here be dragons!  Or possibly Shrek.

We reached Level II!

We passed through the Rarańcza Longitudinal and the Rarańcza Traverse and found some sarcastic graffiti.  Also around this point my camera gave out and I started using Dan's phone to take photos.

This is the old tourist entrance to the mine.  It's full of timber and fancy pants architecture.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in salt!  You never knew you needed this until now.

This is important because Goethe wrote the story on which Schubert's Der Erlkönig is based.  This is important because my dad and I spent several years trying to find this song.  I could remember bits about it, but couldn't find the song.  Dad also had an idea, but the information wasn't forthcoming.  He finally found it two years ago.  

Look!  I was in the salt mine!

We went to the Weimar Chamber to see the mine's ghost.  

Dan's phone had a weird reaction to all the other flashes from other cameras.

We went through the Drozdowice Passage to the Jósef Piłsudski Chamber.

Piłsudski was the First Marshal of Poland from 1920-1935.

Mood lighting in the chamber.

So the water in this chamber used to be deeper, but after three men drowned in it, the level was drained to a safe depth.  The problem was they capsized their boat and could not push the boat off them, but because of the salinity of the water, they could not dive under the boat.  Did I mention that they were drunk?  Cause that probably didn't help them try to escape their fate. 

We took the Kazanów Passage to the Prince Jósef Poniatowski Traverse to the Saurau Chamber.

This is the site of the first indoor bungee jump.  

Not only was it indoors, it's also about 130 meters underground (130 meters at the bottom).

The jumper dropped 36 meters.

This is carved in salt (like everything else) and it shows the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  The Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the first designated sites.  12 were sites were named in 1978.

And we reach Level III!

St. John's Chapel.  This chapel used to be deeper in the mine but was relocated for reasons I forget. 

The Antonia Passage.

The Izabella Chamber.

We passed through a cafeteria, dining hall, and gift shop before they packed nine of us into a 3x6 foot cage that served as the one of four compartments that make up the elevator out of the mine.  It went up 135 meters very very quickly (30 seconds) and was a bit of a ride.  The tour only took us to Level III but the mine has nine levels. 

We were quite hungry by the time we got back to Kraków so we scarfed down some kebobs and went back to the apartment to relax for a bit.  At this point in time we could go back to the places we were at last night to look for Dan's wallet. 

We went to the terrible restaurant, the Dog in the Fog or whatever, and asked them if anyone had turned in a wallet.  They said no.   So we left to check the burger place.  They also said no.

We hadn't found Dan's wallet, but we found a lobster above a door.

We wandered off to find a market that may have been happening, but it turns out it wrapped up earlier in the day.  While we were walking back to the main square we decided to go back to the Dog in the Fog and look under the table where we had been sitting.  They had terrible service so maybe they weren't great about cleaning up either.  Low and behold, a wallet!  It had fallen out of Dan's coat and was under the bench seat.  Relief abounds!  We don't have to figure out how to replace all Dan's specialty IDs and whatnots, which is the real pain of losing a wallet.

The main square is pretty at night.

We sat outside and listened to this band play American oldies while having a few drinks before calling it a day.  Dan tried to get Jameson to add to his tea to make a hot toddy, but somehow the waitress heard Tiramisu.  We were both confused when the cake showed up.  It wasn't great.  However, while were sitting a homeless man came up and asked for money or food or something (I'm guessing because he was speaking Polish).  We gave him the Tiramisu, which he seemed pretty pleased with.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Krakow: Day 2

October 10th

Today we went to the Kazimierz district of Kraków.  This is also known as the Jewish Quarter.

But first, cupcakes!
Seriously good cupcakes.  Best cupcakes I've ever had I think.

And now the Kazimierz. 

We found some art.

And some more art that Dan was convinced was a street performer.  

It was not.  It was art.

Oddly enough we ended up doing a church tour of the Jewish district.  

It was for a geocache that....we couldn't find.

This is from the Church of St. Catherine, which is confusing because all the signs say St. Augustine. 

There's just a lot going on in this painting.  

All I could find out about this church is that it was originally built in the 1300's.

It has a crazy crucifix.

And a pretty fancy altar area.

This wraps up St. Catherine's, or possibly St. Augustine's.

Church of St. Michael the Archangel and St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr.

There's a name for a church if I ever heard one. 

It looks fancy from the outside.

It was built on the location where Bishop Stanislaus was slain by the king in 1079.

This is the holy water at the shrine of St. Stanislaus.   The courtyard area is kind of weird.  There's this pit of a holy water fountain/shrine and then there's a grassy area with huge monolithic statues in the back.  It was pretty though.  Weird, but pretty.

The shrine had neat lamps.

We tried to go into the church, but some sort of official ceremony was occurring.  There were lots of people who were very nicely dressed and wearing all sorts of medals and official looking hardware. 

So we investigated the crypt instead.  It's a who's who of Poland in here.  It's a burial place for notable Poles, especially those from Kraków.  The only one I recognized is Stanisław Wyspiański.

The crypt had thistles!  At least I think they're thistles.

This is the Holy Trinity Church.  We just poked our heads in because it was closed.  So I took this photo through the wrought iron gate.  I think this is a Dominican Church.  

Some fun Storm Trooper graffiti.

The art above the food truck area.  The parking lot below this graffiti is full of food trucks.

More street art!

We messed up our numbers somewhere and were unable to find the final location of the geocache.  Oh well, it happens.

But we found a cool fungus.

Next we went to the Stained Glass Museum and Factory.

Making stained glass has been a big part of Kraków's history for the last century.

These are all the glass color samples for the master glass maker to choose to fulfill their designs.

To the left is the 1/10th scale plan for a window.  

On the right is the full scale print up to create templates for the glass windows.

This is a rose window featuring John Paul II.  

It will take about 3 months to complete start to finish.  I was surprised it was that quickly.

There is stained glass made by using different colors to achieve a design and there is painted stained glass.  The painted stained glass works by putting patina on the glass and then removing it to create the desired effect.  The glass is then baked so the patina becomes a part of the glass.

This is an example of cubism in stained glass....I think.  I kind of forget.  Either way it has corn in it!

This has something to do with Kraków having burned (maybe?) in 1861 and 1911.  

And...something to do with a saint or something.

This was entered into a contest for a new church (that never got built).  This is a 1/50th scale of what the actual size would be in the church.  To give you an idea, this is 1/50th scale is probably...2 meters tall.  If it had been built, it would be 100 meters (~330 feet) tall.  It'd be a football field sized piece of stained glass.   HUGE!

A modern art piece the factory created and won some awards.

So this piece was a showcase piece to let people know how good the factory was.  You don't even really see the support pieces in the glasswork.  Fancy!

Another 1/10th scale design.  

The fancy ceiling above the stairs.

And this is the lovely glass on the factory door.

We went home for a bit before heading out to find dinner. 

And then we found a random street market.

Meats!  Of some sort...

Bread products?  I'm not sure, but they were in all sorts of shapes.

ALL the candy!

And then there was this guy.  

I'm not sure he was actually making things so much as being a display for tourists.

The place we tried to go for dinner was closed, so we went to the Dog in the Fog, but left after we couldn't get food or drinks ordered after about 20 minutes.  So then we had burgers.  Which were really good.  We got home to realize Dan had lost his wallet somewhere. 

This concludes our adventure for tonight.