Poland Days 4 and 5

Day 4!

This entry is two days because yesterday was crazy. Most people climbed up a mountain, or to a lake halfway up the mountain. We took the pleasant valley/shopping route because I didn't feel like a ridiculous hike afterwards. It was pretty nice!

These are the mountains they had to climb. I liked the view from the bottom well enough.

We were in a town with my last name in it! See? Koscielisko!

We had a very pleasant day in the park until about 2pm. Then we went shopping in the town, where I picked up a few souvenirs, using Polish! The views in the park were fantastic, gorgeous rock cliffs and caves.

This was a cave about 40 feet up with a statue of Mary. If you zoom in on her waist, there is something that looks like a bullet hole.

This is me and Kasia, the tour guide/my new awesome Polish friend. Have I mentioned gorgeous views yet? It really is a beautiful country.

We had a nice long chance to shop after the hike, which was lovely. I wanted to take one of these horse carts, but they were expensive. Everyone was exhausted, hot, and sore when they got back from their climb. Then we had to sit on a bus for two hours with extremely hot and smelly people to get to Krakow.

Even with the dual day post I'm still a day behind. Sorry, updating as fast as possible!

Day 5: Salt mines!

Meet the 70 stairway hike down to the Wieliczka salt mines! It was a god send after the 90 degree weather we've been having.

This is a statue made of salt of Copernicus. There are a lot of salt statues on there. You are not allowed to lick those, but you can lick the walls.

This is a salt statue of the King. I'll be honest, I'm not sure the king of what, or why he got a statue, but I'm assuming there is a good reason.

This princess threw her wedding ring into a salt mine as a gesture of luck or promise, then it was found in the first salt mined from the one built in her town. Again, I could have the story a bit off, but that was the basic idea.

These are statues of some tourists that were lost in the 1900s. The tour guide never explained whether their bodies were found.

This is by far the coolest part of the salt mine. A GIANT underground church, where all of the decorations were built by 3 miners. Every piece of the chandelier is salt crystal, every statue is made of salt. I will just put pictures here because words really don't describe it. Plus I had to pay 10 zloty for the right to take these, though a few people chipped in.

Keep in mind that everything above is made of salt, the chandelier above included. Mmm, tasty.

So when we left the mine, Kyle left his mark, and I left mine. A long time ago Simone and I joked about leaving the Seal of Approval everywhere in our travels all over the world. So here is my beginning to it, 70 stories deep in a salt mine!