From our both physically and emotionally exhausting day yesterday we decided that we would take morning easy. Even though we are away from home reality has still found its way to us, and we have planning to do for the next few weeks of our trip so even more reason to have an administration day! We’ve also come to realize that we need to take some time off to slow down so we don’t burn ourselves out.
In the evening Adam and Karolina took us to the Wieliczka Salt mines. Now Andrea and I were expecting to be climbing through the caves and spelunking. However when we got inside to the ticket desk and met our guide we were in for something else. Our guide for the tour was dressed in a full in suit! Took me by surprise for sure. The caves are ridiculous! Even though it is a UNESCO site It is like their own full functioning city. As we descend down 327 meters down the staircase. Now the tour would only cover some of the three levels out of nine. We passed through an obscene amount of attractions! There were full on wedding chapels, churches, spas, basketball courts, recreational gyms, ballrooms, restaurants, shops, lakes, movies projected onto the salt walls and many life sized exhibits demonstrating salt extraction! I could not imagine being a miner worker down in then caves, eventhough the guide said that they worker went up to the surface once they finished their shift I would have just stayed down since there is literally everything you need and more! Apparently the Pope John Paul II of Poland use to come and visit the caves often before he became the Pope and even came to visit once he lived in Vatican as well. Once our three hour tour was over we even got to go up one of the old elevator shafts that the miners use to use. Even with the twelve person our carriage only had eight people and it was tight enough. Poor Andrea wasn’t much of a fan of the ride, but I throughly enjoyed it. The most authentic thing of our visit and the perfect way to finish our visit.
Overall the Wieliczka Salt Mines was so interesting and such a production.
We then all went out for our last dinner here in Krakow. Adam and Karolina treated us to a Polish feast. We were warned that we only had to order one main dish for the both of us since the portions are so big and filling. Now they were not exaggerating! To start off we had some bread and meat lard like spread. Then as an appetizer we had plums that were wrapped with bacon and a mustard dipping sauce. I would have never thought that they would taste well together but they did! Bacon never seems to fail ;) For our main dish Andrea and I split sweet beer marinated ribs with potatoes. Even splitting the dish between the two of us we still weren’t able to eat our own portions! Before the food coma could do too much damage we made sure to pack and get ready for our last day in Kraków before we go to Budapest.