With Mieczyslaw and Back Again

*gasp*! *gasp*! The steel cage doors of the mine shaft elevator opened and we were free. The day was finally at an end and we were on our way to Cracow. But that was the end of the day.

My aunt Marcia and I woke up Tuesday, not knowing what to do, expecting to find some sort of bus tour or train ticket for the day. While our heads were spinning in the Cracow train station, we were approached by A taxi driver named Mieczyslaw Bas offering us a trip to Auschwitz or the salt mines. Thats 'Mishaslav'. Trusting Marcia's instinct, we hopped into his cab and were on our way to Auschwitz.

For the first half of the ride I was playing with my gps... just to be sure of where we were going. Once I was satisfied that we weren't being kidnapped, I relaxed and took some pictures of the scenery. The houses immediately outside of Cracow are very well kept, colorful and picturesque. However, as we drove further away from the city, the houses became grittier and more depressed.

The Polish landscape is gorgeous. One striking thing is that because of the rolling hills, the farmlands are strewn out in long rectangles instead of squares. It made for an different patchwork than that of farms in the US.

We arrived at Auschwitz-1 and the driver assured us he would pick us up in an hour and a half. We tried to find areas that were not overrun by tourist groups(still no Americans) and first came upon the creamatorium. This was the place where the Nazis would 'eliminate' the corpses of slain prisoners. Some rooms also served as gas chambers. There were many memorials in the 'room of ashes' and within the furnaces. Aside from the haunting memories of what happened here for so long, one of the most amazing aspects of Auschwitz was the industrial nature of the whole process. There were railcars and a sort of track contraption leading god-knows-what into those furnaces.

We made sure to visit the firing range within the prison walls. In the effort to hide the prison camps after Nazi defeat, the firing back-wall was dismantled. But the historical society that runs Auschwitz managed to reconstruct it to it's previous dishonor. Most of the bullet holes were filled with memorial trinkets and rocks, and there were many memorials on the ground, where so many people fell.

After Auschwitz, the driver convinced us to go to the Wieliczka Salt Mine today instead of waiting for later in the week. So we got back in the car and took the sobering ride to the mine.

Wieliczka is very close to Cracow and, as such, is a very profitable tourist destination. Tours in different languages left every 15 minutes. While waiting to get in the elevator, we walked through a door and down a flight of stairs... and then another... and another. We soon realized that the elevator we had been waiting for wasn't coming. After the 56th flight of stairs down, we began the 7km and 2.5 hours of walking tour undrground.

It was definitely as-advertised, all made of salt. There were a few wooden supports here and there, but the main chambers were all carved of salt. The tour was a bit fluffy, but the take-away lessons were solid. Salt essentially built medieval Eastern Europe. The leaders who established and supported the salt industry were portrayed in salt, as was Pope John Paul II. The main chamber was particularly amazing, simply because of its sheer size and the ostentatiousness of the miners and artisans.

After 2 hours, I was very ready to be ABOVE the 130 meters of salt rock. And this brings us to the beginning...


Back in Cracow, we ate dinner at a place named 'The Old Kitchen', where we noticed lots of Polish people eating. I ordered a traditional Polish dish of sausage and Kraut, while Marcia ordered little mushroom pocket delights. There was even a pickle bar with real Polish Pickles, red, green and orange saurkraut! It was a filling end to a busy day.

I miss icewater.