It is a 5 minute walk from the station to the mines.
The tours (you must join a tour) are organised by language. The queue was small as it was not a holiday in Poland. Within half an hour we commenced our visit. A word of warning - it is a steep descent by c 450 steps down to level 1 and more to level 2. From there, there is a lot of walking between tunnels. I would estimate that we walked c 5km in all at a reasonably fast pace stopping briefly to admire the various salt sculptures created by the miners over the century.
Chandelier made totally of salt
St Kinga's Chamber - the most spectacular chamber in the mine
Copernicus visited here in in the 15th century while a student at the University in the city.
Our guide was informative but the information on salt mining was superficial
and with the exception of the chamber, and a couple of sculptures, it appeared as if the exhibition was struggling to hold its audience.
There was a blatant commercial aspect to the tour. After an hour, we had a compulsory stop for refreshments at a souvenir shop at 250 metres below sea level. The tour ended after 11/2 hrs in another larger restaurant and souvenir area.
Here one sees the exit sign but the exit necessitates a 11/2 - 2 km walk to the elevator (queue), which returns one to the surface, where one has to pass through another larger souvenir shop before finally exiting the complex!
I was underwhelmed. I had never been in a salt mine before but had it been a repeat experience, I would have regretted favouring it over a visit to Schlinder's factory.
It was our final day, our flight wasn't until
21.10 hrs so we had a full day to explore.
We quitted the Salt Mine and took the return train to the city. Unfortunately, Schlinder's factory closes at 1400hrs on the first Monday of the month and last entry is at 12.30.!!
We decided to visit Nowa Huta; a town conceived by the Polish Communists in the 1940s, construction commencing in 1945 and ending in 1949, without the project being completed. It's a town in a time warp. It's a mixture of Neoclassical, Neo Renaissance and Utilitarian architecture. The fourth side of the square was never built, originally it was called Centralny but was renamed Im Ronald Regan (Square) after independence!!! In 1979, Someone(s) had unsuccessfully tried to blow up the statue of Lenin, which dominated the Square's centre. It was removed in 1989 and the square renamed - the power of the proletariat!!
Five wide tree-lined avenues radiate out from the Square. The town was built to accommodate a proletariat, whom the authorities asserted was absent in Krakow's population structure.! A steelworks nearby provided employment.
For all their proletarian aspirations, the avenues namely Al. Rosa, the finest avenue, accommodated the senior management of the Steelworks!! Does anything change??
Though architecturally impressive, it continues to remain a city reminiscent of the Soviet era. We saw two restaurants - one was what's termed a Milk bar - these are places where cheap food is provided for the proletariat.!
The ambience would not entice one to eat - worse than, dear reader, your image of a poor canteen with the food served through a hatch.
On the same street, was the city's 'finest' restaurant named Stylowa, a restaurant caught in a time warp!!
The restaurant windows appeared to display old photos of the utopia that was to be Nowa Huta
The rest of the street was dour - one modern coffee shop, no bars, such shops as there were, were hidden with no signage outside. It reminded me of our trip to the Soviet Union in 1988, when it was impossible to locate a shop or restaurant and the shopping centre Gum was devoid of products. I haven't made a return visit since but I'm advised I'd find to-day, a Gum teeming with international designer goods.
There were two elderly men sitting in the street and seeing me photographing the avenue, asked me to take their photo. I duly obliged.
We returned to Krakov via tram
collected our cases at the hotel and taxied to the airport.
I had wished to visit Krakow for sometime and I was not disappointed.
It is a beautiful city that survived Soviet 'vision'
The ordinary people one met in the street were helpful together with, for the most part, those in the hospitality industry. Officialdom, however, portrayed a bored, unhelpful and dour image. It will probably take a few generations for the soviet attitudes to change and understand the term service.
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