Breakfast in Hungary, Lunch in Slovakia, Dinner in Poland

Busy travel day yesterday. We liked Budapest so much, we were reluctant to leave. On our way out of the city, we crossed a bridge that has an interesting story.

When it was being built in 2006, the transportation department held a naming contest. Somehow, Stephen Colbert heard about it and asked his viewers to vote for the bridge to be named after him. Well, the name "Stephen Colbert Bridge" received the highest number of votes --17,000,000 -- more than the entire population of Hungary! In good humor, the transportation minister called Colbert and said they couldn't use that name because the honoree had to meet 3 requirements: (1) Hungarian citizen (2) speak the Hungarian language (3) be dead. It wasn't all bad news for Colbert, though. He was invited over and given special treatment during his visit. 

About an hour after crossing that bridge, we passed from Hungary into Slovakia with no fanfare whatsoever. I snapped a photo from the bus window.

We stopped for lunch in Donovaly, an appealing Slovakian ski resort.

We arrived in Kraków in the late afternoon. After getting settled in our hotel, our tour group walked together to a restaurant where we had dinner along with classic Polish entertainment. Fun!

This morning we left for a walking tour of Krakow's old town. We learned that in medieval times when most people were illiterate, they gave their address as "the house under the elephant" or "the house under the rams" -- you can see below that these are now places of business, including one that's very familiar!

The castle fortress was used by the Nazis to house troops during WWII. Nowadays, museums and government offices occupy the buildings.

A church that is located on the grounds is still actively used as a place of worship. Poland claims to be the most Catholic nation in the world. The Poles are extremely proud of their native son, Pope John Paul II. This was his church when he was a Cardinal here.

 

The grounds are well-tended and full of flowers, just beautiful!

Just before lunch, our walking tour ended in the market square. 

There's a piece of modern art that somehow manages to fit in with the surroundings.

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We were free for a few hours before our next excursion, a visit to the Wieliczka Salt Mines. It has been in existence since the Middle Ages, and was named one of the original UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

We descended into tunnels that contained displays of how the salt was mined. 

Bill & three other men from our group got to demonstrate how some miners, for 8 hours straight every day, pushed a wheel to lower equipment and raise salt from the mine.

I tasted the water running through the tunnel -- VERY salty!

There are three chapels within the mine, one of which is huge.

Everything you see is carved out of salt! The details are amazing.

The Last Supper:

At the rear of this chapel, the newest salt statue is of John Paul and was  completed in 1999.

Throughout the mine, even the floor tiles are salt.

It was a really unusual experience, and a capped off a very interesting day in Kraków.