Friday we left Auschwitz and drove directly to the Salt Mine. It is world famous. For over 500 years - it has been producing tons and tons of Halite or Rock Salt. Salt at one time was - worth its weight in gold. It was used to preserve food before we came up with refrigeration.
Halite as a rock is colored gray or brown because of the impurities in it. When you crush it - it turns white. So most of the salt carvings in the mine appeared brown or gray. On the Mohs Scale of Hardness - rock salt is rated at 2. Talc is 1. Diamond is 10. Steel is about 8. Since rock salt is so soft - it is easy to carve in.
We got to the mine at around noon. The grounds are beautiful. The old buildings are completely restored. This is one of the top tourist attractions in Poland. We bought tickets for an English guided tour. It was to starts at 12:30. We had time to buy swirly ice cream cones.
The tour started promptly at 12:30. We had to walk down wooden steps about 400 feet into the ground. The area startled me with how clean it was. I am used to coal mines and Crystal Cave - where things are wet and dirty. This mine was clean throughout. We had a three hour tour which included mostly level - 3 miles of walking. We were in countless rooms or chambers. Some were from the 1500s! Each room was named for someone. After we got done the tour - our guide reminded us that we have only visited about 1% of the mine. It also went down a lot deeper.
There is a cathedral carved into the mountain. I saw where there were at least 2 separate modern elevators. People that come to church there - take the elevator down and back.
This attraction is very labor intensive. There are forests of logs used as support. Most of the floors are just carved and polished salt. The steps in some places are carved salt. Other places - the wood was finished beautifully - since there is not bad weather down there - it lasts. There are even a couple of lakes down there. Think of them as carved swimming pools - full of salt water. The lakes do not melt the salt because they are already strong brine.
After spending 3 hours underground - you could feel strange with all that rock above you. No windows - only a couple ways out. Doors were place to keep the air circulating throughout the mine. The temperature down there stayed a constant 65. With the breeze - you could feel chilly.
After the salt mine tour it was less than 10 miles to downtown Krakow. Lulu booked a very nice Qubus Hotel - mainly because it had a really nice pool and hot tub on the top floor. The pool was inside surrounded by glass because Krakow does have snowy cold winters.
We spend the evening at the downtown market square - the biggest one in all of Europe. We had supper there - food prices were modest - and there was a lot of entertainment. We took an Uber to town square and back. We left our car parked in the hotel garage.
Today - we toured the Shindler's Factory. You may remember the movie about Oscar Shindler called Shindler's List. The story is how he save Jews from the Nazis by hiding them in his factory. It is really close to our hotel.
My laundry is done. I must fold it up. Lulu is at a mall - which is just around the corner. I think tomorrow we are heading to Dresden - Germany. We are close to the border with Slovakia - but someone told us they are locked down. We have gotten into a pattern of two nights per hotel. It gives us more time to enjoy the local area.
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