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krakow and prague
Apr. 8th, 2004 10:24 pmtuesday. still in krakow. arose at seven, as we have been doing, to get the bus to see a salt mine. strange as this sounds it was actually quite fun. the mine's like 700 years old and they only stopped mine like 7 or 8 years ago. but they still get salt from the groundwater. the tourist route only goes through a fraction of the tunnels and only the the 3rd of 9 levels, but still takes 2 hours. it's full of salt statues, carved by the miners. mostly for tourists to see but still quite cool. all the walls, floor etc., were salt (of course) and our guide told us we were welcome to lick them to check. i don't think anyone did. but we were not to lick the statues. 'don't lick copernicus' became the quote of the day, as that was the statue we were first instructed not to touch. and yes, our guide said those very words.
the most fabulous part was decidely the cathedral. the miners apparently built a whole bunch of chapels for themselves (the only things not carved for tourists) back in the middle ages and we saw a couple of them, but the cathedral was truly stunning. it was immense with carvings all over the walls, and a beautiful salt chandelier.
after this we returned to krakow proper and wandered somewhat. eventually wandered to the cloth hall, which has a small art museum with some quite neat paintings.
wednesday night we took the night train to prague. arrived early this morning and stumbled around the station a bit finding train info and maps then wandered to the hostel. once we'd sorted ourselves we went wandering through prague itself.
prague is an amazingly beautiful city. there's churches everywhere (i keep restraining rena from going off in random directions to chase spires she sees in the distance. we'll find them all eventually but it works better if we follow a plan) found both old town square and wencelas square, in new town (the latter quite by accident) and wandered through assorted street markets and peeked into churches. climbed a tower for a lovely view of prague. we went to the jewish quarter and saw the outsides of synagogues but didn't go in because they were quite expensive and it was getting late, so we wouldn't have much time. further wanderings shall takes us to castles, etc.
i skipped wednesday day. wednesday we went to osweicim, to the auschwitz concentration camp. i find it somewhat difficult to explain what i felt about the matter. there's something surreal about walking through the town, where people are living regular lives, and walking through the camp, which pretty much consists of a lot of brick buildings, with the knowledge of what happened there. it all looks very ordinary. standing in a gas chamber all you see is a big empty room and it seems incomprehensible that thousands of people were murdered there. i'm not sure how i'm reacting. i've been thinking about it a lot. thinking about how any individual relates to historical events, especially when born years after they happened.
i've been up and down all day, partially just from exhaustion, partially not. i miss england more than i ever missed america. strange.
the most fabulous part was decidely the cathedral. the miners apparently built a whole bunch of chapels for themselves (the only things not carved for tourists) back in the middle ages and we saw a couple of them, but the cathedral was truly stunning. it was immense with carvings all over the walls, and a beautiful salt chandelier.
after this we returned to krakow proper and wandered somewhat. eventually wandered to the cloth hall, which has a small art museum with some quite neat paintings.
wednesday night we took the night train to prague. arrived early this morning and stumbled around the station a bit finding train info and maps then wandered to the hostel. once we'd sorted ourselves we went wandering through prague itself.
prague is an amazingly beautiful city. there's churches everywhere (i keep restraining rena from going off in random directions to chase spires she sees in the distance. we'll find them all eventually but it works better if we follow a plan) found both old town square and wencelas square, in new town (the latter quite by accident) and wandered through assorted street markets and peeked into churches. climbed a tower for a lovely view of prague. we went to the jewish quarter and saw the outsides of synagogues but didn't go in because they were quite expensive and it was getting late, so we wouldn't have much time. further wanderings shall takes us to castles, etc.
i skipped wednesday day. wednesday we went to osweicim, to the auschwitz concentration camp. i find it somewhat difficult to explain what i felt about the matter. there's something surreal about walking through the town, where people are living regular lives, and walking through the camp, which pretty much consists of a lot of brick buildings, with the knowledge of what happened there. it all looks very ordinary. standing in a gas chamber all you see is a big empty room and it seems incomprehensible that thousands of people were murdered there. i'm not sure how i'm reacting. i've been thinking about it a lot. thinking about how any individual relates to historical events, especially when born years after they happened.
i've been up and down all day, partially just from exhaustion, partially not. i miss england more than i ever missed america. strange.
