Yesterday we went by train down to Krakow. The train trip was good and we arrived on time. We had heard a lot about Krakow from friends and also people on our tour. They had all said we would love it from the moment we arrived and they were right.

Our hotel was walking distance to the old town and main square, the largest medieval square in central Europe. We were told that it also rivalled St. Marks in Venice for size, albeit they are different shapes and in the middle of the square here there is a large building, the Cloth Hall. This originally served as a market for merchants but has had many uses over the years and is now a market again on the ground floor. The basement is a high tech museum and the first floor is the National Museum.

Also in the square is the Town Hall Tower, St. Adalbert's Church and St. Mary's Baslica. The Town Hall Tower was once part of the Town Hall complex but the main building was torn down some years ago while the Tower was kept. Krakow is interesting that way as during the 19th century a number of buildings, the city wall and some of the towers (only 3 towers and a couple of old gates remain) were demolished in favour of newer buildings and parks. St. Adalbert's Church on the other hand was the first church built in Krakow (11th century) and is a mixture of designs – Pre Roman, Roman, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. This mixture of designs seems to be a thing with some of the churches in Krakow. To enter this odd little church, which is easy to overlook on the square, one has to go down about 20 steps (2m) yet to enter the church when it was first built one had to go up a few steps. Unfortunately the church is under renovation until the end of the year so we were not able to see inside.

St. Mary's Basilica on the other is a magnificent building standing in another corner of the square. As is common with many churches it had been ruined through fire or vandalism and rebuilt over the years. The inside of the church is unbelievably ornate. You think you have seen the most ornate church and then along comes another one. The altarpiece alone took one person 12 years to construct. The stain glass windows and blue starred ceilings were very colourful while the carvings, pictures, statues and 4 organs added to the grandure.

During the afternoon we joined one of the many walking tours of the city. Our (full time) guide was Latvian and the other people on the tour were an Armenian/Canadian working in Egypt and a Icelander living in Spain. First Icelander that we have met – not surprising as there are only 350,000 of them.

First stop was the Jagellonian University. This is the oldest university in Poland having started in 1400 when the building was purchased for the university by the King. Over the years the other buildings surrounding the first one were purchased to form the present university.

Although we did not do it, you are able to follow the line of the old wall around the city. The towers and gates which had been demolished are all marked with plaques blocks set in the pavement.

Next stop was the Bishops Palace. Among the bishops who resided here was Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) and most of the information presented around the Palace was about him and the Archbishop of Krakow during WWII – Adam Sapieha. During Nazi occupation clandestine religious study was continued by Archbishop Sapieha and one of the pupils was Karol Wojtyla.

On we went to Wawel Castle. At this point our walking tour ended and the quide left us after telling us about the castle and cathedral and answering any questions we had. We have to say that the walking tours we did in Berlin were better than this – probably a reflection on the guide more than than the sites we were seeing.

As we climbed the road up to the castle we noticed the wall had many plaques with names on them. These were names of the people who, during the 1920s, had donated money to the restoration of the castle which had fallen into disrepair. At the top of the road there was a statue of a soldier riding a horse – General Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Not only was he considered to be a national hero of Poland but also of Lithuania, Belarus and the USA. It was during a personal visit to the USA that he joined the American War of Independence as a Colonel of the Engineers after which he was granted citizenship.and was not only inspired by America's fight for freedom but also the contents of the Declaration of Independence. In Poland he prepared the plan for, and fought in, the 1794 Uprising (sometimes called the Kosciuszko Uprising). Poland by this time had their own constition – the first in "modern" Europe and the second in the world after the USA.

Continuing up to the top of Wawel Hill we entered the fortified walls of the Castle considered to be the Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey of Poland rolled into one site. The architecture is a mixture of Roman, Renaissance and Gothic dating from the 14th century. Unfortunately we were too late to get into the Wawel Cathedral and the Castle – we will do these on our return to Krakow. We did wander around the courtyard and gardens for while before walking back to the old town square.

In the square we wandered around a bit more, had dinner and returned to our hotel where we should have started this part of the blog but did not – too tired.

Next morning we were being picked up at the hotel to go and visit the Salt Mines and Schindler's Factory. We could have gone to these sites without being driven, but we were carrying our overnight bags with us and were going to the train station to return to Warsaw that afternoon. By having a driver/guide we could leave our bags in the car and did not have to worry about getting the right bus or flag down taxis.

There are 2 salt mines near Krakow, Wieliczka and Bochnia; we visited Wieliczka which is a listed UNESCO monument (1978). The mine has 9 floors to a depth of 327m and over 200kms of tunnels. About 20 million years ago there was a shallow salt water sea. Over the years the sea dried up leaving the salt and with tectonic plate shifts the salt ended up below ground.

Our 2 hour tour started with an initial descent of 380 (wooden) steps but during the tour we descended more steps to a total of 195m underground – the deepest tour groups are allowed. Apart from the fact there were no windows, the passage ways and caverns are so large there is no feeling of being in a confined space nor underground. At the end we were pushed into an elevator which held 8 people and whisked to the surface. Temperature in the mine is 15ºC. Despite the occasional salt water lake, humidity was very low and the air quality was excellent – especially for asthmatics. Throughout the tour we came across many carvings of statues, plus numerous wall carvings, the most interesting one being in the Holy Cross Chapel of the last supper. There were 8 chapels altogether, however there were only 3 on our tour, the largest being the Holy Cross developed in 1860. Horses were used down the mine. They were not transported up and down each day but lived in the mine as long as they remained healthy which they did due to the good air quality and temperature in the mine. There must have been at least one forest of logs in the mine. The logs were, and still are, used to prevent cave-ins and again, due to the good climate underground, especially the low humidity, they do not rot.

Schindler's Factory was the next stop. Schindler's activities only became famous after the movie. The factory was only opened as a museum last year after years of restoration. It is probably the only museum about Krakow during the occupation by the Nazis and was very interesting. There is also detailed coverage of Oskar Schindler and his workers. Our driver thought (was probably hoping) it would take us just over an hour to look through it but it took 2½ hours and could have taken longer but we had a train to catch.

Auschwitz is also a popular visit in Krakow however we decided we did not need to visit another concentration camp having visited Sachsenhausen near Berlin in 2009.

Krakow is a lovely old city. When the Nazis invaded Krakow they set it up as their Polish headquarters even to the point of erecting new buildings. They did not destroy it when they left as they had to leave too quickly. All they destroyed were the bridges and the buildings which would incriminate them of their attrocities – Jewish Quarter etc.

In hindsight we needed at least 3 full days to look around Krakow and possibly more. As we need to go back and explore Germany further we will include another visit to Poland at the same time and this will include Krakow and Zacopane in the Tatra mountains to the south.

Now off to the station and back to Warsaw by train. There was a German couple (our age) in our carriage on the way back and we had a number of very interesting conversations with them as you might expect being in Poland. They were going north of Warsaw where they were joining a bike tour. Tomorrow morning we will be off to the airport to catch a flight to Calgary via Frankfurt.