Europe 2017: Day #26 In the Footsteps of JP II

Monday, 28 August 2017

We started our day with a visit to the Barbican, a defensive structure on the edge of the Old Town.  It's one of only three such fortified structures left in Europe and hence was worth a visit.

There wasn't a lot to see so we headed off into the park that circles the walls of the Old Town, or, at least where the walls used to be.  The park was built on top of the filled-in moat and is a great way to get a bit of greenery into the visual cortex, rather than looking at concrete and brick all day.

As we walked through the park we kept on thinking that in a few months all the leaves will be gone and the snow will have started.  But we would be long gone and back in Australia by then. 

From then on you might be forgiven for thinking that Pope John Paul II and Nicolas Copernicus were the two main people to have lived in Krakow as we kept on running into them for the rest of the day.

In a small square adjacent to the university there was a small statue of the late Pope and inside the university, as we found on the tour we took, were a portrait and plaques and probably another sculpture or two.

Copernicus studied here and the tour highlighted a number of number of telescopes and astronomical instruments, including a copy of the first globe showing the "New World" and one showing the barest outlines of "New Holland" but this one was covered over and unavailable for viewing, unfortunately.

The tour finished soon after lunch which gave us enough time for a rest prior to heading out to the Wieliczka Salt Mine for another tour starting at 4pm.

This was completely unexpected to me, though Robyn had had it recommended to her by someone at work and I'm glad she did.  After walking down 400 steps we then walked for a number of kilometres admiring the tunnels, the massive chambers and the chapels, all carved out of the rock salt.  We ended up some 130 metres or so below the surface, and two hours after arriving were crammed into a tiny lift and hoisted back to the surface.

Underground ballroom

Of course, John Paul was also depicted in sculpture underground.  He had visited there as a child, as a student studying in Krakow and had been due to visit again as Pope when he returned to Poland, but had fallen ill and had been forced to miss this stop.