tourist trapped

When I first mentioned going to Poland, several people suggested we stop by the Wieliczka Salt Mine outside of Krakow. And today, that's just what we did.

A million years ago, a mountain of salt rock formed under Wieliczka. Hundreds of years ago, people started mining it. And today, if you visit there, you can pay thirty Zlotys and get dragged hundreds of feet below the surface of the Earth in a tour group of thirty-five to see, well, a whole lot of salt.

But not just salt. Salt carved like things. Virgin Mary's in salt. Statues of miners in salt. Entire churches carved in salt, 400 feet underground. About halfway through the tour, I began to feel like this was Wieliczka's version of the World's Largest Ball of Twine or the Drive-thru Tree. If the salty figures had been singing "It's a small world," the picture would have been complete.

Still, it was nice to take a break from the death and dying tour. You can only look at graves so many days in a row. After the Warsaw cemetary and the Jewish History Museum, I think we were all ready for some salty silliness.

Our reprieve will be brief. Tomorrow we go to Auschvitz.

But tonight, we drink in Old Town. It's a beautiful night, and it's good to be alive.

{ 9:45am }

» Brace yourselves. And though the past is important, as I've said before, don't dwell on it - it makes you crazy.

Take care.

– Tom Cosgrave  { 5.30.01 @ 12:49pm }

» must've been a salty experience indeed! have fun!

– anisha bordoloi  { 5.30.01 @ 9:42pm }

» Eep.

– mirla  { 5.30.01 @ 10:48pm }

» Auschvitz.
I've never got enough will power to get myself to that place.
I guess the past still hurts too much, somewhere deep inside...

– ohad  { 6.4.01 @ 5:16pm }

» Wieliczka is really impressing - very uncommon with the other mines i have visited. Too bad the visitors lick on the statues (especially virgin Mary and religious kinds). which slowly tear them away.

The great halls and dooms are majestic, but a burger joint hundreds of feet below the surface reminds me that the mines are a tourist attraction more than a peaceful place where people can stress down.

– Magne Haagen Flatval  { 7.21.01 @ 11:11pm }