The city of Krakow is a jewel. What makes it so unique is that it has been any important city since the 7th century, yet it has remained relatively intact over all those violent years. If you have visited Europe you know there are many amazing cities where so much of the architecture has been recreated after its destruction during the Second World War. Krakow escaped such destruction. By the time the Nazis occupied it the fighting was over at the beginning of the war. When the Soviet Army came to liberate Krakow they swept through and caused very little damage. Thus Krakow retains much of its charming medieval character.
This is St. Mary’s Basilica in Krakow’s old town; it dates to the 14th century. I have no interior pictures because we entered to pray, not as tourists, so no photos.
We took some organized tours for our final days in Krakow. One went to the Wieliczka salt mine, an absolutely huge underground site on the outskirts of town. The mine functioned from the 1200s until 2007; now it’s a UNESCO world heritage site. It has numerous chambers and over 100 miles of tunnels. The most amazing thing to me was the various salt sculptures completed by the miners, along with almost 40 chapels: the miners apparently never wanted to be far from a place to pray when they were underground. And yes, JPII even has a salt mine statue!
“Polish for foreigners?” I guess the domestic market is saturated.
I’ll conclude my Krakow thoughts by returning to John Paul II. Our tour guide compared the way locals feel about him to Americans and Elvis. While the comparison is superficial, it does capture the warmth of the relationship. Perhaps based on their unique history, the Poles grasp something about JPII that others miss: just as the triumph of freedom over Nazi tyranny was essentially the story of FDR and Churchill, the triumph of freedom over communism ended up being the story of Reagan and Wojtyla.