Day 3

Now THAT is a Holubchi! Imagine eating 3 of them as I did, having a fiance unwilling to translate 'I'm full' translating instead 'more'.

Today we visited the Wieliczka salt mine. It is over 700 years old and the tour is worth every penny. The pictures below are a quick sampling of the 900MB's worth of images / videos Ian and I took.

The easiest way to get pockets of methane out of a mine? Burn them of course! In the mine's 700 year history pockets of methane were lit on fire to clear them, often resulting in death. Don't mine the 'spirit orb' in the picture...

A display depicting St. Kinga and the origin of the mine. St Kinga was a Polish queen that married a Hungarian King. He gave her a salt mine in Hungary as an engagement gift (salt being nearly as precious as silver in that time frame). She threw her engagement ring down the mine in Hungary and had a feeling there was a salt mine in Poland. There was then a mine found in Poland and her engagement right was found within a block of salt. In the picture above a miner is seen handing the block of salt to St Kinga.

Monika with Pope John Paul II's salt statue.

I've never eaten lunch before in a cave so far in the ground...

A great beer selection at the undergound bar. 1/2 litre of beer 3 dollars. By Canadian standards a steal. (At the supermarket they're a dollar).

Lunch 170 metres in the ground.

These two mammoths and lunch 15 CDN, all while 170 metres in the ground.

Jet lag is best fought using 1 litre Polish energy drinks likely illegal in Canada.

The flea market in downtown Krakow. Everything from the useful to the useless.

Monika's grandmother shops here daily for the freshest vegtables. There are large supermarkets, but nothing beats the farmers.