While still planning this trip from home, I booked an all day tour of Auschwitz and the Wieliczka Salt Mine for our first full day in Kraków with AT Cracow. I knew it would be a lot in one day, both physically and mentally.
Auschwitz is about 45 miles from Kraków, and we had an early time slot at around 8 am. To have enough time to pick up everyone our minibus left at 5:50 am, which meant we got up at 3:30 am--early even for me! But the bus was comfortable and we were able to sleep a bit on the way.
Full disclosure--I did not take any pictures for myself on the Auschwitz tour. They were allowed in most parts, but how many pictures of the Arbeit Macht Frei gate or the Birkenau tower do you need to see? And in a blog that's primarily about us having a good time, it didn't feel right to put photos of the displays of the inmates' shoes that were taken from them, the mountains of human hair that were used by the Nazis to make fabric, or the artificial limbs that were collected before sending their owners to the gas chambers. But these are all important things to see and the link to those exhibits is here.
Our guide here was very good and of course knew the history and really brought the significance of what we were seeing to us at every stop. I am sure it's not easy for him to do that every day for (at least for us) was a three hour tour.
I knew about the Holocaust and that there many were killed here but I didn't know the total was at least 1.1 million and perhaps as many as 1.5 million (out of 6 million) Jews that were put to death at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Our guide also said several times that this was not just a memorial, but also a graveyard. Towards the end of World War II the SS put thousands in mass graves. I also learned that the concentration camp survivors and victims' families wanted to keep this place intact as a memorial and in 1947--just two years after the war's end--this was done.
I can't say I was looking forward to this part of the trip, but I thought it was an important place to see and witness when there are many who deny that this atrocity even happened. If any of you are able to come to this part of Poland, I hope you can come and see this for yourself.
The bus was pretty quiet on the way to our second stop, the Wieliczka Salt Mine, but I think it was a good thing to finish with something that reminded us of the good that people can do. This UNESCO World Heritage Site was a working mine until 1996, although they still produce some salt from the water that continues to be pumped out.
We had some time to walk around town before the tour. This is actually a bus station built in 2021. I have since read that building in this style nearly doubled the cost and it's somewhat controversial.
The UNESCO Sign
The first leg of this tour took us down 380 steps to a depth of 64 meters (210 ft). This part was excavated in the 17th Century and you could feel the drafts coming through. It was not cold really, just about the same temperature as outside, 17 C (63 F). Our guide told us that they use wood beams as support because the salt in the water (and air) preserves and strengthens the wood. It's also painted white at this level since that reflected light better--a necessity in the age of candles.
Tunnels
Soon we began to see salt carvings made by miners over the years:
The Legend of St. Kinga. As princess of Hungary, she was betrothed to a Polish king. She received a salt mine in Hungary as a dowry, but to transport it to Poland she threw her engagement ring down a shaft. The sculpture shows a salt miner in Poland giving her back the engagement ring he had found.
Copernicus in salt
King Casimir the Great. He issued the statute of the Kraków saltworks which regulated the work and rights of salt miners.
A lot of our trip planning comes from watching travel videos on YouTube, so we knew what was coming up next. I almost wish that we hadn't seen anything about it, because we would have really been surprised. Even so, the Chapel of St. Kilda was awesome. It's the largest underground church in Europe at a depth of 101 m (331 ft).
View from above
The altar and chandelier
The Last Supper
Flight into Egypt
Jesus and the Pharisees
Right after this was the Erazm Barącz Chamber which includes a 9 m (29.5 ft) deep brine lake. Barącz was a mining engineer who headed the mine from 1915 to 1921.
The lake
After a total of 800 steps, we had some free time at the very lowest part of the mine, at 135 m (443 ft). But what really caught my attention is when our guide said they had the deepest restroom in Europe (or maybe she said the world). Whatever it was, it immediately made my bucket list and almost as quickly checked off.
Salt Crystal Display
This was the end of the tour, but luckily we did not have to climb all the way back to the top. There were elevators that we could ride back up. It was a very tight squeeze though!
The trip back to Kraków should have been only 25 minutes but with traffic was terrible at this time of day on a Tuesday so it took somewhat longer and instead of our original meeting point on the other side of town, we decided to get off the bus at the Old Town. We walked around a bit and then back to our hotel, but we were exhausted and went to bed.
Tomorrow was another full day here and I will post that part next.
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