Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. – Colossians 4:6
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” – Matthew 5:13
Wednesday started by the river, took in a tour of the salt mines, and finished up with a phenomenal virtuoso organ recital at the elegant Kraków Filharmonia.
Today’s Travelogue, then, will feature three short vignettes:
The Vistula River:
I know that Max would enjoy my morning walks along the Vistula. Taking in the views, making our way by Wawel Royal Castle, watching out for the dragon, wrapping up against the cold – except it was twenty-degrees above normal this morning in the low forties.
There are wide biking and walking trails all along the riverfront, then more through the parks atop the embankment. Pedestrians have special privilege here in Krakow and pretty much always the right of way. Life here is built around people not automobiles, and it makes a huge difference in the pace and the aesthetic of urban life.
The Salt Mines:
Rebekah and I took our first trip out of the city, riding a bus to the Wieliczka Salt Mines a few kilometers to the southeast.
The short story on the salt, geologically, is that a massive sea evaporated after a shift in climate leaving vast salt layers, which were then essentially bulldozed by the rising Carpathian Mountain range and compressed into the deposits we know today.
The bedrock is 90% salt and has been mined for thousands of years. The area we explored goes down almost 500 feet (that is a lot of steps) and has generated many interesting stories and legends.
What’s 100% real is the amazing work that has to be seen to be believed. Caverns and underground lakes and intricate life-sized carvings all hewn out by miners over the years. Everything – the walls the ceilings and the flooring – is nothing but rock salt. There are even exquisite chandeliers made of salt.
I will likely write more about this later. For now, here are a few slides.
Organ recital:
If Sunday evening was all edgy rock-opera with the production of “Rent” then Wednesday night was about a little more refinement at the classical concert hall.
Although I have to say that the keyboardist – virtuoso performer and organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral Olivier Latry – played some pretty wild stuff!
Again, I was blown away by the quality of the artistry, the sheer full-on talent, and the magnificent sound of a brilliant musician, arguably one of the best organists in the world, playing at the peak of his ability.
This is one amazing world! What a privilege to travel and discover and learn! Rebekah and I are so grateful for all these experiences.
As our son Andrew would say, “Another epic day!” – DEREK
Thoroughly enjoying your pictures. There’s a salt mine near Bogotá in Zipaquirá which also has a church or “cathedral”, but I thought it was the only in the world. I learned something. And the art work in your pictures is amazing.
People really are so inventive – and I love how they express faith in the medium they find themselves in. I have more than 100 amazing photographs from the mines and will have to post more when we return to the States.