Wednesday, July 18
We booked a noon tour to the Salt Mine in the nearby town of Wieliczka. Since we were not expected back in Krakow until about 4:00 pm we decided to have an early lunch at what is becoming a favorite restaurant near the Old Town Square: Placki Ziemniaczane. This time we opted for the buffet. They have main dishes, salads, desserts and so much more. It’s just 4 PLN per 100 grams. I had pierogi with sautéed onions, meatballs in a white gravy laced with dill and a fried pork cutlet. Wanting to eat lighter Deborah opted for a quarter of a roasted chicken and some potatoes seasoned with rye seeds. We’d never had potatoes and rye together – it was really good.
At noon we boarded the bus and soon we were at the mine. The mine opened in the 1200s and was in continuous operation until 2007. It’s one of the oldest salt mines in the world, is listed on Poland’s official list of National Historic Monuments and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s one of the most popular tourist attractions around Krakow. Commercial mining stopped in 1996 because of declining salt prices. Salt is still being produced but on a much smaller scale. Today the mine employs 500 guides and only 300 miners.
In medieval times salt was an immensely valuable commodity. It was just about the only means of preserving food and it was somewhat rare. It was said that for two barrels of salt one could buy an entire village and all of the people in it. The mine, owned by the king, brought tremendous wealth to the area for many centuries.
We received wireless headsets and met our tour guide at the top of 398 steps that were to take us to the first level 300 feet below the surface. We walked through a maze of tunnels which lead into a number of large chambers. Because of the depth miners would spend several days at a time underground. To help alleviate the boredom they would carve intricate sculptures out of huge blocks of salt. Cavern after cavern had large, complex sculptures that were many centuries old. We saw several chapels with stunning altars made completely from salt. In many cases we were walking on ordinary looking floor tiles that turned out to be made of 100% salt. Starting in the 19th century many of the sculptures were created by artists rather than miners.
(From the Chapel of Saint Kinga)
We continued to descend throughout the entire tour and finally reached a depth of about 450 feet. We wondered why, with the high humidity and ambient water, the sculptures hadn’t eroded. We were told that the humidity and temperate in the mine were virtually constant which provided a stable environment for the salt. It sounded far fetched but we did see the evidence.
At the mid point of the tour we had a ten minute break in a large cavern where there were bathrooms, a snack bar and a gift shop. We saw several actual miners getting food for their shift. Near the tour’s end there was an underground museum but we didn’t see it.
At the end of the tour we found an elevator that would bring us back to the surface. We’d been walking around for about 2.5 hours inside a giant block of salt. In that time we’d waked about 5.5 miles and had covered less than 1% of the mine.
When we returned to Krakow we headed over to the Jewish Quarter to the square where our guide had told us about the zapiekanka. We ordered one with spinach, feta cheese and extra cheese (not sure what kind of cheese that was). Underneath all those toppings we found the traditional mushrooms as well as a thick pesto sauce. One portion was more than enough for the two of us to share. That, along with a bottle of water, cost just under $3.00.
(Zapiekanka for Dinner)
Distance walked: 10.2 miles
Thursday, July 19
It was castle day! We planned to see everything that Wawel Castle had to offer. It was going to be another long day.
There’s a LOT of misconceptions about tickets for the castle. You can’t buy tickets online and even one of our guides from the free tour gave us incorrect information. We checked several online guides and all were completely useless. Here’s the scoop: there are two main ticket booths where you can buy tickets for all of the attractions owned by the State. Credit cards are accepted. There are a limited number of tickets per day for The State Rooms, The Royal Private Apartments, The Oriental Art and The Crown Treasury and Armoury museums where you’ll be given specific entry times for each so it’s hard to plan your day in advance. It’s best to get there early before things sell out. If you want to climb the Cathedral Bell Tower (called Sigismund Bell) or the Royal Tombs you have to purchase separate tickets at a different ticket booth opposite the Cathedral where you must pay in cash.
We arrived around 9:15 am and got in line. There were about two dozen people ahead of us. The ticket booth opened at 9:30 am and the line moved excruciatingly slowly. We watched an electronic board that indicated how many tickets were left and hoped that there’d be enough for us if we ever got our turn. We walked away around 9:50 am with tickets to the five exhibits we wanted to see and headed straight for the ticket booth across from the Cathedral. Since we had about 30 minutes before we could enter the State Rooms Exhibit we had coffee and cookies at a stand in the castle courtyard. The coffee was good but the cookies were one of the best things we ever put into our mouths. They were meringues made with brown sugar and filled with some sort of sweet creme.
The castle’s origins date from the 13th century. Because of wars, fires and expansions portions have been rebuilt many times. Today the castle incorporates many different styles from the Gothic through the Renaissance. Our first experience was the State Rooms. Here was saw a series of rooms that originated in medieval times with high coffered ceilings and large, luxurious tapestries. In the late 16th century king Sigismund Augustus commissioned about 150 tapestries from a factory in Brussels. At the time tapestries served not only a decorative purpose but were used as a way to keep rooms warm in the winter. They also helped reduce the echo in large spaces. After World War II the tapestries were stolen by the Soviets and moved to Saint Petersburg. Years later they were repatriated but only 138 came home. The rooms also contained sculptures, paintings and period furniture. There were some lovely works by Peter Paul Rubens, Tintoretto and some lesser know Italian artists that we particularly enjoyed.
(Wawel Castle Complex)
About 20 minutes after we finished seeing the State Rooms we were scheduled for a guided tour of the Royal Private Apartments. We would be seeing different rooms in the same portion of the castle with a very knowledgable guide. She showed us how we could tell where there were hidden staircases between the walls that were probably used by servants but may also have been used by the king’s mistresses. We asked the guide where “Lady with an Ermine” was being displayed. It’s a famous da Vinci painting that we were lead to believe was at the castle. She informed us that it had recently been moved to another museum. We were very unhappy (echos of our Mucha experiences in Prague).
Our next stop was at the Crown Treasury and Armory. They had a nice display of armor, medieval weapons, early rifles, pistols and cannon. No photography was permitted in any of these museums.
Finally we got to see 900+ year old Wawel Cathedral. It’s the place where all of the kings of Poland were coronated. Many of them, along with their spouses, are buried in elaborate tombs within. The layout is typical of Roman Catholic churches with a large main altar and many smaller altars along the sides. The interior is richly and opulently decorated with colored marble, gold and silver.
The entrance to the bell tower is through the sacristy and leads through a very small wooden opening to a set of steep circular stairs. Along the way to the top there are platforms where you can see some of the famous bells including the 13 tonne Sigismund bell which was commissioned by King Sigismund I in the year 1520. Keep your head low or you’ll regret it. People were much shorter in the middle ages.
The way down leads directly into the crypt where we saw some famous burials. There is a monument to Frederic Chopin which is said to contain the ashes from his heart. Many kings and queens are there including our friends from Dresden August the Strong and his son August III both of whom were elected as King of Poland (when the Jagiellonian line died out in 1572 Poland began electing kings in 1574). Unfortunately no photography in the church or crypts were permitted but we did get some nice pictures in the bell tower.
(Monument to Frederic Chopin)
For lunch we went back to the same coffee stand and ordered two pre-made sandwiches and some more of those wonderful cookies. The sandwiches were way better than we had any right to expect and the cookies certainly didn’t disappoint. The only thing that could have made it better was if they accepted credit cards. Only two more exhibits to go.
Next we climbed Sandomierska Tower. It was one of the defensive towers that surrounded the castle. A set of wooden stairs wound around the outside until the halfway point where you could go inside and see the surrounding area through windows all along the perimeter. This lead to another set of stairs that went all the way to the top where there was another set of windows. We had a nice view of the castle and the river below.
Finally there was the Dragon’s Den. All we knew was there was a statue of a dragon and that it breathed fire. We HAD to see that. The Den is just a long cave that takes you outside the castle complex where there is a large, bronze sculpture of a dragon. Every five minutes a gas powered flame shoots from the dragons mouth. It’s fun to see and it’s very popular with the kids. It can be seen for free; there’s no need to pay the 3 PLN to see the Dragon’s Den.
It had been a long day and we were tired, but we were also unsatisfied. We really wanted to see that da Vinci painting. It’s one of only four portraits that da Vinci did of women. One is, of course, The Mona Lisa, which we had seen in Paris in 2016. Another is La Belle Ferronnière which is also at the Louvre (we’re not sure if we saw that one or not). The fourth is The Portrait of Ginevra de’Benci which is hanging at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. We hemmed and hawed for a while but finally decided to head over to the National Gallery and see the damn painting (by now we were REALLY tired).
Lady with an Ermine is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan and da Vinci’s patron. Sometime after the Duke was married his new wife forced him to give up his relationship with Cecilia. The Duke arranged for Cecilia to marry count Bergamino and she took her painting with her. For three hundred years the whereabouts of the painting was unknown but in 1800 it was purchased by a Polish noble named Czartoryski as a gift for his mother. In 2016 the entire Czartoryski collection, including the da Vinci, was purchased by the Republic of Poland. The Lady with an Ermine is now on display in the main branch of their National Gallery in Krakow.
We took the 15 minute walk over to the museum where we purchased two tickets to the permanent exhibits at a cost of $11.00 and headed directly to the room where the da Vinci was on display. The painting is beautifully done in typical da Vinci style. The background, however, is completely black. The curators think that it was painted over sometime before 1800. It has been examined by several non-invasive techniques but no consensus has been reached yet on how it was originally painted. It seems unlikely that da Vinci painted it that way. No photography was permitted. Outside the room the museum had a poster sized version of the painting with a sign encouraging visitors to take selfies with the portrait. We took two!
(Selfie with Lady with an Ermine)
For dinner we stopped in Old Town and had falafels. Before heading home we went back to Placki Ziemniaczane for the best damn frozen yogurt we’ve ever had. Deborah had strawberries and cream and I had chocolate and vanilla twist. Yum!
Distance walked: 8.4 miles