Wieliczka Salt Mine and Kalinka Restaurant

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Wieliczka Salt Mine is another UNESCO World Heritage Site and was first mined in the middle ages. The mine contains three thousand chambers covering over 300 KM. The highest chambers (where the tour really begins) in the mine are located at about 64 metres below ground or 378 steps down. The deepest chambers are 327 M. Fortunately, we didn't have to walk back up the stairs at the end of the tour.

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Wierzyneck 1364 Krakow, Poland

The visit to Auschwitz was our last stop on the WWII history portion of our trip. I'd wanted to see Nuremberg and the Nazi party rally grounds and the Congress Hall and then Auschwitz. Now it was time to move on  to  the happier portion of our trip and dinner always makes me happy so we set out to find a restaurant.

One of the nice things about Krakow is the great value for your money and even in the old city centre prices were more than reasonable. 

We were walking around the Main Town Square menu browsing when we came across a very nice restaurant called Wierzyneck 1364. It is beautiful. We were seated in the main dining room, which is decorated with sumptuous carpeting, linens, drapes and gorgeous stained glass.

After browsing the menu we decided to have the duck, which is flambed at your table. It is served with apples cooked in honey and a ginger cranberry cake. It was delicious, and quite the showstopper to see it prepared.
For dessert I had a beautiful frozen pear mousse with a dark chocolate sauce. Again, it was delicious.

www.wierzynek.pl

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Pod Wawelem

Pod Wawelem is a pub/restaurant in the Hotel Royal and just a couple blocks from our hotel, in the old city, across from Wawel Castle. We thought we were entering a posh restaurant and were surprised when we came into what was basically a beer hall.  Big steins of beer were everywhere, sauerkraut, sausage, cherry vodka shots and cute boys and girls serving the happy crowd. filled the room .They were surely growing big muscles under the massive platters of food they were delivering to hungry patrons. 

I had a bread bowl with sauerkraut and sausage and pork ribs that were divine in their simple deliciousness, and a big stein of beer that would make Homer Simpson drool.

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Please leave your comment or reaction below. Your feedback is appreciated!    ~ Mark Daye

Krakow, Poland (Eat, Pray, Pray, Pray, Love)

Krakow, Poland: October 16, 2010.

There were several nice little bistro type places on our street near our hotel, so we thought we'd try one of them. One italian place very close by looked nice and had a live jazz band playing so we decided to go inside. The place was packed and a frazzled waiter brusquely told us "NO", followed by some Polish which was unintelligible to me. I have come to realize that the Polish and Germans have a bit of an edge when they speak English and can come across as being bit abrupt, but I think it is generally not intentional, just a different inflection than what the average English speaker is used to. In this case, the guy was very busy and overwhelmed, and I can certainly understand.

We made a hasty exit and decided to try out the Horoscope Restaurant on the corner at the end of our street. The place was a quaint Polish bistro with plenty of candles, low red lights and interesting wall decor. We did some quick math and realized the prices were more than reasonable compared to what we pay in Canada for a meal at a restaurant of similar quality.

Krakow maple leaf. I have maple leaf pics from Paris, London, Rennes, and a few other places.

We ordered appetizers. David had the fried camembert with almonds and a raspberry compote. This was more than enough for two people and reasonably priced.

For mains I had the 'rabbit, in it's own sauce', beetroot and gnocchi. David went for the 'chicken in it's own sauce' with a side of roasted potatoes.

To drink, we chose a Chianti, the best one on the menu, which we would never normally do at home, but the price was right, and we are on our honeymoon after all.

The busy little restaurant served delicious food that was inexpensive, and had a homemade and robust quality to it.

The staff were friendly and helpful, spoke some English and the restroom was tiny, but clean and pleasant

My first impressions of Krakow are good. I'm an atheist, but if I was a praying man I'd have a difficult time deciding which church I'd attend. There are literallly some 31 churches shown on the map of the area immediately surrounding our hotel.

I do enjoy the architecture of churches, let's face it, they cost a fortune and the faithful don't mind spending on their places of worhsip, and I get to enjoy the visual result.

Krakow is VERY Catholic, the late Pope John Paul II was the archbishop of Krakow and he is the main man here. You will see him all over the place, along with other various saints, martyrs and other religious types. 

I covered the eat and the pray.

The love is for my husband, and I now also love Krakow and can't wait to return and see the rest of it.

Like this post? Hate it? Please leave your comment below, all are appreciated!    ~ Mark Daye

Warsaw To Krakow

We made to to Warsaw intact and departed our train and started the search for our train to Krakow. 

Warsaw Central Station was very busy, small and cramped. Low ceilings over tiny cramped shops sold everything from cell phones to ladies underwear to sandwiches. Having planty of ladies underwear, I went for the sandwich (kidding, I hardly have any ladies underwear).

Image Source: Wikipedia

 Trivia:

"The station was one of only a handful of public buildings in Warsaw which suffered a technical fault as a result of the millennium bug. The indicator board shut down for approximately 24 hours on 1 January 2000 while its timing chip was replaced. In the meantime, all departures were announced over the public-address system."

Source: Wikipedia.

I showed the lady working at the sandwich place a 5 Euro note and asked her if she took Euro's? "No, Kantor" she said, and pointed to a sign down the hall. I went that way, and saw she was pointing to a cash exchange or 'Kantor', I had just learned my first Polish word. There was a bank machine near by so I used that instead and withdrew cash, as it is less expensive than using a Kantor.

I went back to David and we saw that our train was now showing on the departures board and it was  on time, we went to the platform and boarded our train for Krakow.

We were expecting an older type of commuter train, which we've seen before and have travelled on and we got just what we expected. First class is nice. Second class is usually very comfortable too. The train is full, there are a few young people sitting on the floor. We are lucky to be in a strange room at the end which I think is meant for people to put their luggage. It is heated and there are three seats and two other benches, so it's fine.

There is another guy here with us who is friendly enough, but doesn't speak any English (or so I thought when I wrote that last sentence). He did speak great English and helped us on arrival, to find our way out to the street we needed to get to our hotel.

I went looking for the bathroom, or W/C (water closet) as they are referred to over here only to find three men waiting ahead of me. When it was finally my turn, I wedged myself into the closet like space, did what I had to do and pressed the foot pedal. To my surprise the flap at the bottom of the toilet flipped open and the contents were unceremoniously dumped onto the track flashing by below.I knew these toilets used to exsist, but I admit that I was surprised to see one in operation.

Countryside

The ride is quiet and uneventful. The landscape quite flat, with small family farms scattered around. I just saw a man in a large field by himself stacking loose hay into piles. The field next to him held several of these piles so I think he must have been at this for awhile today. 

Nuremberg, Germany/Nurnberg, De

Oct. 14th, 2010. 1:20 pm, local time or 7:20 am EST.

We are on the Deutschebahn ICE train headed to Nuremberg. We left the very large and impressive Frankfurt main station at 12:54, much later than we had expected due to us  sleeping much later than expected, but we are feeling refreshed and looking forward to seeing the rebuilt medievil city of Nuremberg and the museum at the old Nazi Party Congress Hall.

David tried to find a hotel here about a month ago with no luck, it seems there is some large convention in town or something like that, so we are doing a day trip by train. Tonight we will return to Frankfurt and then tomorrow night we take another train (or several different trains to be precise) to Krakow, Poland.

Green Germany

We just passed a large array of wind turbines, which are huge, much bigger than any I've seen.  I saw a field full of turbines when we were decending on the plane, I wonder if these are the same ones?

They are several kilometres away and tower above anything around. We aslo saw a large field packed with a solar array, but I didn't get a picture of it. It is very common to see homes covered with solar panels as the government here will buy your extra electricity, as they do back in Ontario.

Here's a few more pictures, there will be some of us to come, stay tuned!

 

Hillside wind turbines, between Frankfurt and Nuremberg, Germany.

This is what passes for a double in Europe. Oh well, as long as my sweetie is with me, I'm happy!

The view from our Franfurt hotel room.