Krakow, Poland: Your castles are nice and your salt is salty.

Train ride to Krakow.
Basilica of Saint Mary, Main Market Square.
Krakow streets.
The whole group outside The Royal Castle.
The Royal Castle.
The bell tower in the castle. Left hand on heart-right hand on the bell = good luck!
The girls outside the castle.
Salt sculpture in the salt mine.
Cathedral in the salt mine. So beautiful!
Chandelier made of salt crystals.
Salt relief of the Last Supper.
Molly and I in the cathedral.

We caught our train around 10pm on Thursday night, and so our 10 hour train ride began. We had just met Kevin, the newest and last member of our program. The eight of us squeezed into one of the cabins, got a few beers (I think I finished half of one!) and played a few games. We were all excited to finally be on our way to POLAND!!!! Unfortunately we didn't get much sleep on the train, but we were up at 7am, walking in the cold to our hostel! After a short nap, we all ventured out into the city for our tour of Krakow.

We started in the Main Market Square, there were tons of cute shops bustling with a young crowd (Krakow is 80% students). The Basilica of Saint Mary was beautiful, the sun was shining, giving the whole square a brilliant glow. From here we walked over to the Royal Castle. It was an audio tour that gave us all of the history of different displays and rooms. We couldn't take too many pictures =( The castle was full of tombs of deceased kings and rulers, many small chapels with beautiful ceiling paintings, a bell tower that we got to climb, and amazing architecture.

We grabbed pizza at a local shop and hopped on a bus to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. It is this amazing salt mine that is now like an underground city. At 327 meters deep and is over 300 km long we barely walked through 1% of it. There were salt lakes, exhibits with salt sculptures, a cathedral, and lots and lots of salt. You could lick the walls.

We got back to the hostel and everyone was exhausted, running on little sleep and a full day of walking the city, a nap was gladly welcomed. Well, I didn't wake up from my nap =) Everyone else headed out for a crazy night on the town, but I was more than happy to stay in and catch up on much needed sleep....