Winding Up in Krakow

So as we get ready to depart Krakow I might as well finish blogging these part of my Polish craziness.

Boxing Day saw another round of judging in the Just Another Aussie Bogan Pissweak World Tour. The contendor... The Salt Mines. With a fabulous website, UNESCO listing and a good reputation to boot, who would have thought this little battla would've been in contention? (We could have said that about the Kremlin though).

Maybe it was the guide - who looked like a bad Friday night double of Poirot with off ratings quality jokes too match - or maybe it was the lack of kitschy salt sculptures. Whatever it was, it sucked. There was one good salt cathedral but other than that it was a bunch of dull displays on how salt is mined and a pissweak man-made underwater lake. For future travellers I have two words of advice - don't go. And to add insult to injury it was about our fifth sunny day in the Northern Hemisphere and we spent half of it underground.

Still I spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly through the Old Town streets until I wound up on the banks of the Wistula River for sunset with stunning views of Wawel Castle.

The following day we visted Wawel Castle which sits proudly on a hill overlooking the river bank. That means you have quite a majestic walk up the hill looking at these massive walls that were built by the Austrians who hijacked the castle when Poland was repartitioned at the end of last century. Inside we visited the Cathedral and the State Rooms but that Hermitage fatigue was kicking in.

"If this is a State Room, shouldn't the ceilings be about fifteen feet higher?" If you know what kind of a wanker I am you know what I mean.

We finished off the afternoon by moving out of our beautiful apartment and into a hostel with four bathrooms for about forty seven guests. Hit up a few of the basement pubs and a couple of local type pubs before calling it a night.

Today we visited Kazmieriz which is the Jewish section of town made famous for its role as a location in Schindler's List. (Well I mean it probably had a role in history before that but everybody knows Hollywood film's legitamise the importance of a place. I mean wasn't Brisbane a whole lot cooler after they made Inspector Gadget 2?

Then in the afternoon we visited a cool museum that featured a Da Vinci and a Pieter Brueghel the Younger plus some serviceable Italian paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries.

And as a nice little postscript to our brown Christmas... it started snowing last night and didn't let up until it had finished dumping about half a foot by the middle of this afternoon.

paka and tomorrow we leave for Gdansk!