Kraków; Saturday, 03 June, 2006

Recipe for an Eastern/Central European capital: Take one river, place hill by the side of it. On top of hill erect large castle/palace complex with a big cathedral and lots of buildings, Leave to stand for several hundred years, occasionally extended and rebuilding bits, result a Prague, Budapest, Bratislava or in this case Kraków.

The castle has stunning views over the city centre from it's ramparts and is packed with interesting buildings and museums. First stop of the morning is the display of Oriental treasures that the castles kings seized. Then it was onto the massive treasury and armoury absolutely bristling with weaponry and gold.

After having a short wander around the grounds we went to the "Lost Wawel" exhibition that shows many of the bits of the old castle that have been lost over time as new buildings are built over the top. The exhibition also has a computer walk through of what the original settlement on the castle hill with its church and small buildings might have looked like.

From there we descended the 136 steps into the hill that the castle stands on. Underneath there is a quite large complex of caves, at the end of which lives a fire breathing dragon (though in its current form the terrible lizard is made of copper and its breath is powered by town gas!

After having walked back up to the entrance of the castle we were just in time for our timed entry slot into the State rooms. There is a large collection of rooms in the castle, and about 20 of them are on display to wander round. The rooms are all richly furnished with lots of paintings and tapestries, and beautifully carved ceilings.

After stopping for a bite to eat in the centre of town we walked the short distance to the railway station and caught the train out to Wieliczka. The town sits right above a massive seam of rock salt, and into this, for centuries, people have dug to extract the salt. The mines now cover a massive area and descend to over 300 meters deep. Over the years the miners carved elaborate caverns, in most cases to extract the salt, but in other locations to create chapels and caverns.

The mine is now open to the public to go on guided tours, these start by descending 380 steps to the first level of the mine 64 metres below the surface (by the end of the tour we had descended another 71 meters to level 3 at 135 meters below.)

Along the way we walked along over 2KM of passageways leading into many stunning caverns. The most impressive of which housed a full church, carved from salt over 40 years it's the size of a decent cathedral and all the fixtures within it, including the chandeliers, are made from salt.

The tour ends with an optional, but free, 50 minute or so guided walk around the museum which tells the history of the extraction of salt, shows examples of salt crystals and how they form, and includes more impressive caverns and tunnels.

The tour ends, thankfully, with the express lift to the surface. It takes just a couple of seconds to re-ascend the 135 meters that you have just taken 3 hours descending. We walked back to the station and caught the train back to Kraków and dinner (with no salt!).