Adventures with Julia

September 18, 2017  (Recounting the events of September 16)

I am sorry to tell you all that we have both been under the weather with head colds.  First Mark got it and 2 days later, I did.  So, although we did do the sightseeing on the itinerary and even more, I did not have the energy to write and went to bed early two nights in a row.  I am starting to write now, but I am still coughing a lot and my body aches.  Mark is a bit ahead of me on the recovery.  Hopefully, by tomorrow, we will be more ourselves.

With Marta’s suggestion we changed our activities and timing around on the 16^th and 17^th to be more efficient and inclusive.   We started off early on the 16th with a new driver taking us to Oskar Schlinder’s Factory, which is now a branch of the Krakow History Museum.

We had no idea what we were getting into.  The building is 3 stories and I thought we would be seeing the relic of a factory.  Instead it has been remade into a complex network of rooms that flowed from one space to another and directed us through a moving timeline of the history of Krakow between 1939 and 1945.  As we walked through the rooms, the experience became more moving, especially as we passed through the densely packed ghetto areas with several short films and into the sounds of the liquidation of the ghetto.  There were many photos of war time scenes, maps, posters and stories.   It would have been hard not to be moved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After leaving the factory museum, we drove back to the center of the Old City to visit the Church of St Mary, when its ornate altar doors are opened at precisely 11:30 every day to display the story of Mary’s life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The church is quite colorful with a blue sky and stars painted on the vaulted ceiling and colorful paintings and stained glass windows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we grabbed a quick sandwich, that Mark thought was like prison fare.…dry, hard with little meat and wimpy lettuce.   Onward to the national Gallery to see one object only, Leonardo DeVinci’s Lady with an Ermine, 1489-1490.

It was in a darkened room by itself with few other visitors.  We studied it for some time, but could only take a photo of a copy out in the hall.  I thought it rivaled the Mona Lisa and was certainly a lot easier to see up close.  No barrier between us and the painting except a rope 3 feet from it.

The we drove out the city a short distance to the Wieliczka Salt Mine.  This had not been on our original program, but we wanted to see it, so Marta rearranged things so we could.  We got there in time to make our 2:30 appointment.  Pretty amazing that so many people want to see the salt mine that time slots are required.  The salt mine has been in existence since 1473, more than 700 years, and was one of the largest enterprises in Europe.  Although salt production stopped in 2007, there are still 1000 miners employed to keep the mine safe to visit, in addition to the employees handling tourists.

It is considered one of the most valuable monuments of material and spiritual culture in Poland and is on the original UNESCO World Heritage list of 12 sites.  All the sculptures are made of salt.  There are brine lakes and wooden supports that are now covered in salt too.  Pretty amazing place.  Reminded me of our California gold mines.

We passed through several long horizontal hallways that entered into rooms, chapels, and other spaces full of salt sculptures, some religious and others of miners, or famous figures.

 

 

 

At the heart of the tour at 101 meters deep, is a huge hall called the Chapel of St Kinga.  It had salt encrusted chandeliers, sculptures of Goethe and John Paul II among others and wall carvings of the Last Supper as well as other biblical stories.

There was a food concession and souvenir store in the space too.  Hmmm.    Maybe they stopped mining salt because there was more money in mining tourists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were in the mine for 2 ½ hours at a constant temperature of 16C.  Relatively pleasant and not to crowded because of the spacing between groups.  By the time we got back to the hotel, it had been a long day.  We started at 8:30 and finished at 5:30.  Right after Marta left, Mark and I went around the corner from the hotel to a place called Del Papa and had pizza and pasta.  Nice comfort food.  We had fun chatting with the bar tender and then went home to bed early.  We were both feeling miserable.