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Having sampled far too much beer, wine and vodka the previous evening we missed the 9:30 trip to the salt mine, so thought we would just head off on foot into the town to take in the sights.
We walked about half a mile into the old town. The sun was shining, the temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius again. The sights in the main square are fantastic. The centre of the square is dominated by the old cloth hall, which is filled with stalls selling amber jewellery and other tourist souvenirs.
St Mary's church is off to one corner of the square. This was surrounded by birds flying around and squawking. We climbed the tower, not the best idea in the heat, and we were fortunate enough to get to the top on the hour so that we caught the trumpeter playing the Hejnal to the 4 corners. It is a tribute to the trumpeter who was killed in mid tune when rousing the town when it was under attack. He was shot in the throat with an arrow, the trumpeter plays the tune to the point half way through a note.
After looking around the square and many churches, and sampling some more local beer, we moved on down to the castle. We spent about an hour here looking around, and then headed back to the hotel to cool off.
We managed to get a trip to the salt mines at 3:30, in a tiny minibus, back along the road I had ridden only the other day, through all the roadworks. I had ridden this road twice, but had not seen the signs for the salt mines.
The tour lasted for 2 hours, descending 135 meters by foot. There were many carvings of famous people and some quite impressive rooms, one of which was a huge church with ornate carvings on the wall depicting the life of Jesus.
Unfortunately, they put us in a lift for the ascension back to the surface, taking 40 seconds, I was hoping for another workout with 100's of stairs.
We returned to the hotel at about 7:30 and went out into the town for something to eat. We found a restaurant just off the main square called Chimera. We were led through a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, to be seated in a little room with 3 tables. The food and service in this restaurant were excellent, everything burst with flavour. We returned to the hotel, headed directly for the bar for a beer and to try some more vodkas and to learn some Polish from the barmaid.
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