Salt and Hard Truths

If you would have asked us 5 years ago about how much fun we could have in a salt mine we would have both said probably zero. So wrong! After a super fun time in Hallstatt 2 years ago we decided to check out the Wieliczka salt mine just outside of Krakow. It was superb! Not the largest in the world but one of the oldest. We saw about 1% of it and walked for 3 hours and were 130m below the ground. They started mining it in the 1300s and stopped in 1996. Great tour guide and impressive operation. One of the things that made it special was that there was so much art within. Carved into walls and intermixed with old marks from hand tools from a long time ago. There were modern spaces for weddings and events (even football matches played there). The most beautiful part was a chapel/cathedral that was entirely carved from salt. Chandeliers of pure salt, beautiful pictographs of stories of Jesus and of course John Paul II, who was so important here. Copernicus (also Polish) had a beautiful sculpture also. We watched a light show over a salt lake set to Chopin (also Polish). We left the site and tried to grab lunch (burgers). After a bit of a wait we asked to takeaway because we were already late for Auschwitz-Birkenau tour. We did make it in time (more positive reinforcement for a family weakness of perpetual lateness).

Leading up to this we have been trying to talk to the kids about the Holocaust because we think that it is an important thing to learn about, but also worried about their ages. Elliot and G to a lesser extent have already learned about this in school, but not H.

The tour started in Auschwitz I and then we took a bus to Birkenau about 3 km away. 1,100,000 people were killed at these death camps alone. Gideon and Elliot grasped it more having studied it and we were worried that Hudson wouldn’t really understand, but he felt it deeply as well. We saw the rooms, gas chambers, and crematoriums. We saw the shoes and glasses and life left behind, and walked the route from the train to the gas chamber at Birkenau. It was a heavy day with a lot of evidence to make you feel the scope of the tragedy, but certainly worth the visit. This place is so beautiful but can’t escape many hard parts of history.

We came home and picked up a super delicious Indian takeout and watched Clarkson’s Farm, which if you have access you should totally watch. A British gem that was exactly what we needed.Leggi altro