Tuesday, 21 July: Darrell worked in a 2 1/2 mile run before breakfast, but it already was a hot day. At 9:30 the bus took us to Old Town where would finally have some free time. Katie led us to a music store where we found the CD of Polish patriotic marches our friend Dick McNealy, had asked for. Then we headed for the Cloth Hall. Jane wanted to buy some of the amber jewelry Poland is noted for. She selected a small cross pendant, a bracelet, ring, and earrings, all set in silver. We also picked up a set of nesting wooden plates for Diane and Dennis, a couple of T-shirts, a round wooden box, and a religious triptych. Most all of it fit nicely in the small back pack we carry when traveling.

Then we walked to the Jagiellonian University and the lovely courtyard we had seen the day before. We barely caught a tour of the interior of the buildings, joining the Kimmins brothers and some others from our group. In fact, by the time we bought our tickets, we had missed the first couple of rooms. The rooms and their furnishings, originally used primarily by the faculty of the university, were very impressive. We were becoming accustomed to the fact that almost everything we saw in Krakow was around 500 years old. Copernicus had attended this university in the 1490's, and one of his models of the heliocentric solar system was on display. As the tour ended and most people left, Jane told our guide that some of us had missed the beginning of the tour. The young woman graciously offered to take us back and do that part again. She also posed for a picture next to a elaborate portal.

Jagiellonian University

Interior tour guide

Courtyard (1400 A.D.)

For lunch we bought some of the twisted bread sold by numerous street vendors, then each had a small ice cream cone. We caught a taxi back to the hotel about 2:00 and had time for a dip in the pool before getting ready for the tour to the salt mines.

Entrance to Salt Mine

There were numerous sculptures of salt, some centuries old, others quite recent. In one scene, there was a princess and seven dwarfs, six of them bearded and one clean-shaven (like Dopey). Darrell couldn't help but wonder whether this was the inspiration for Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarf," except he had them mining diamonds instead of salt. Most impressive of all, though, was "The Cathedral." It was a huge chamber, complete with an altar to the Blessed Virgin, a communion rail, "crystal" chandeliers, a floor of polished "marble" octagonal tiles, and elaborate bas relief wall sculptures. And every bit of it was carved from salt!

Old salt sculpture

The seven dwarfs?

The Cathedral

Throughout the tour, we kept going deeper into the mine, sometimes by sloping tunnels, sometimes by huge flights of stairs. Altogether we visited three of the mine's seven levels. There were deep shafts and long tunnels going in every direction. It would have been easy to get lost if one left the tour. There were even small lakes in the salt. We wondered why the water didn't soften the salt and cause erosion. The answer was that, once the water is saturated with salt (33%), it will no longer soften or even wet any dry salt it touches.

From a depth of 1000 feet we took the multi-level elevator back to the surface. Instead of seven persons per elevator, as on the way down, we were crowded nine per elevator, and it was really a squeeze. The ride would have been competition for anything at Disney World. It was almost totally dark and we shot up like a rocket.

It was still hot and muggy outside, and it felt all the worse after the coolness of the mine. We walked a short distance to a local restaurant (no air conditioning) for another "typical Polish dinner." After a glass of a "famous Polish vodka" (zubrowka), we had a salad, a thin but tasty pea soup, gravy over potato pancakes with pieces of pork in them, and thick apple sauce with whipped cream. The bus had us back to the hotel by 8:00, so we could pack for our early departure for Prague the next morning.