Krakow - Day 3 ( & Departure)

Day 3:
After a surprisingly restful night of hostel-sleeping, we woke up and got breakfast in the restaurant next door. The little place was really cute and after some confusion in ordering, we got our breakfast. It was not exactly what I was expecting, as it wasn't cooked or anything, being a variety of foods that the restaurant people had taken out of store-packaging and put on a plate (ie bread, cheese, tomato, cucumber, jelly, meat, butter, and coffee). However this was nice in a way as I didn't have to wonder what I was eating and I was able to make a funny little sandwich. Not to mention it only cost like $2.33...

After breakfast, we packed all of our things and left them in our hostel's storage room for retrieval after our day's tour. This adventure would take us to the Wieliczka Salt Mines, another famous tourist attraction in the Krakow area.

The tour bus picked us up from our hostel and (along with a bus of other people) we were on our way. The mines were about a 45 minute drive and upon arrival we headed into the entrance after a 5 minute break. You begin the tour by walking down 390ish steps to get to the mines that reside at ranging depths of 100-300 meters. Now when I learned about this tour, I expected to go and learn about how they mine salt. But instead this tour shows you the underground world created by the miners including salt sculptures, salt cathedrals, salt pools, and more. It was surprising, insane, and very salty.

The stairs down.

A statue honoring Nicholas Copernicus.

After the salt tour, we returned to our hostel to gather our things. We then proceeded to the bus station as instructed by the receptionist at our hostel.

Now I am a math major, as many of you know. And the receptionist told us that a trip to the airport on the city bus would cost 2 zloty per person (student rate). Emily had a 5 zloty coin so we thought, that will be perfect, we just get on the bus and only have 1 zloty left over. The problem was, when we got on the bus, the machine where we bought the ticket had no way of indicating that we were students. Thus it spit out on ticket - at the regular price, 4 zloty - and I was left ticketless because we were officially broke. This friendly Polish person asked us if we needed help and we explained our predicament. She just kind of stared at us and didn't know what we should do. Then Emily made the move - asking if the lady happened to have 3 zloty. Turns out she did and we gave here 2 euro which (once she got them converted) would have her making about 7 zloty on the deal.

Worst part, nobody ever checked if we had tickets or not.

Check-in and security went very smoothly at the airport that we had plenty of time to kill before our departure. I used this time to grab a snack and watch Mamma Mia (again). I should also highlight the very pretty bathroom at the Krakow airport, it was so nice I took a picture (below). When we boarded our flight I was next to a middle-aged couple from Dublin and they were cordially nice without talking to me the whole flight (my preferred kind of travel companions).  

Our flight arrived early to Dublin and our bus back to Cork wasn't until 9:30 so we had a little over 2 hours to spend in the airport. After finding a restroom, we went to a pub(ish) place and ordered nachos. 

The bus ride was unbearably long and boring as I watched Mamma Mia another time (it really never gets old, Meryl is just so dang brilliant), and the rest of the time I spent watching a black and white screen at the front of the bus showing the road ahead of us (as apparently there is a camera attached to the front of the bus - I would have preferred a real movie). We then got a taxi home from the bus stop, another night lasting until at least 12:30am and after cleaning my room I went to sleep.

Well there it is folks, a thorough snapshot of my trip to Krakow, Poland. I hope you enjoyed this short travel series! Please look for more to come as I have other exciting trips lined up! 

Writing again soon,

The Opinionated Lassie