Beautiful Restoration

 One room on the miner's route that is not on the tourist route is currently undergoing restoration.  It was originally carved out for a royal dinner back in the early 1800's with a bunch of literary figures.  The chandelier, as you see, is in its full glory.  The obelisk is currently being restored along with the rest of the room.  There's an orchestra balcony and the room is large enough to hold a ball in.  Soon, I hope, it'll be put to its former use.  We could tell the difference between the two times we visited.

 

 

Outlining Again

I'm outlining the diamond in algerian eyelet stitch now.

Geeking Out In Krakow

 Krakow has an industrial trail!  Why not walk the area where the great Victorian industrial works were?  And the street names will definitely put you in the mood for it.  Lastly, legos.  Who can't get into giant legos?

Tools, Chutes And Gates

 The water wheel pumps salty water out of the mine.  I think it's beautiful  The barred photos are down mine shafts used to bring items up and down between levels.  The model below is of a crank pulled by horses that lifted the salt blocks (up to a ton each) from lower levels.  Even horses rode in these chutes sometimes, since they don't do stairs and ladders well.  The last is one of the gates to the stairs.

Starting To Fill

I am starting to fill in the middle now.  The design is actually backstitched onto the background, so I have a lot of boring red back and forth to fill in.  Sooner started, sooner finished!

Lunch In The Jewish Quarter

 There is a whole small street of kosher restaurants across from the old synagogue in Krakow.  It evidently caters to the Jewish ghetto tourism trade.  We went down to that area of  town to see if there was something we were missing.  As an aside, although I am not Jewish, most of my Polish family was killed during WWII by the Nazis and the Russians.  I just didn't get the area.  It looks the same as the rest of the (nontourist) areas of Krakow and currently has no Jewish population.  It was pleasant, but so?   Anyway, the place was not somewhere I could see paying to get a tour of.  Part of my disinclination may be because of the way the current Israel treats both America and the rest of the middle east.

Anyway, on to the food.  This whole street was WAY overpriced on food.  It wasn't even particularly good food.  I had soup, salad, and onion rings, and Andreas had pierogies and salad.  The onion rings were obviously from a frozen bag, and I wouldn't say the soup wasn't from a can.  Andreas' pierogies were also from the frozen food section of the grocery store.  My salad was just plain weird.  Maybe they think they can take advantage of people who are in that area because of their sad memories.  If so, shame on them.

Mapped

 This is a map of the known portions of the mine.  They are constantly finding new areas that have not been mined for centuries.  The other photos are of general atmosphere in the mine.  The air, by the way, is very clean and healthy feeling.  It clears my lungs every time I go down there and I breathe better, despite my asthma, for days afterward.