Krakow

Yesterday we walked all around the old town which I believe is the only city in Poland to survive the world wars.  The streets and buildings were great but to be honest I liked Tallinns tight random street layout more.  Its a great place to see and I found the first bakery that I've liked in Europe so far.  It supplied us with  great breakfast and lunch, even had a sourdough whole wheat!  mmmmm.....tasty.  The bread didn't measure up to Orchard Hill however, I'm sure Greg LeMond would agree.

Then in a casual sub ten second discussion we decided to change our course to Munich by riding thru Slovakia and the Austrian mountains for a more direct and scenic route. Its fun to be able to just decide such things on a whim and agree so easily.  A few years ago I decided to quit racing in about ten seconds.  Later on our change was confirmed by hostelers that Vienna will be nicer than Prague.  And of course the Austrian mountains will be epic.

In the evening we got loured into a ping pong match with some drunken Aussies which was fun for about 15 minutes before we had to bail.  They were just too rowdy and Jen was the only girl around.  They sure did stay loud and kept waking me up all night.  They were drunk for more than 12 hours.  If you're going to stay so drunk while you travel why not just go to the south pole, I heard that its "beautiful" and there are pallets of booze on hand at all times.

Today we decided to get our fill as regular tourists by visiting an ancient salt mine 15k away.  It was really cool, been in continuous operation since the 13th century, Copunicus was there as was Pope John Paul II and some others.  They used horses until 7 years ago!   A horse would work and live for 1 year in the mine without coming out, fortunately not to return.  There was a huge underground chapel there which was impressive.  For some reason I liked the floor of it a lot.  Lots of wood supports, wood gets stronger and more flexible when it soaks up the salt and gets preserved a bit I think is what they said.  After descending 130 meters on steps they stuffed us in elevators, phone booth style, for the ride back up.

And, finally, I just ate some steak taretare at the best resteraunt around, both of us got stuffed for about $25.  Soooooo good!  The restaraunt is called Pod Wawelem I think, its just east of the castle.  Check it out if you ever find yourself hungry in Krakow, all the stuff in the square is way overpriced.

So the plan is to leave Krakow tomorrow (after breakfast at our favorite resteraunt and stocking up at the bakery) and go south to Slovakia.  Then turn west for Vienna and Munich leaving the flat roads and hopefully the traffic behind.