Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Once upon a time there where three little pigs who went to live in Poland. One built a house of straw, one a house of sticks, and the last a house of bricks. Unfortunately for them, the big bad wolf knew that Polish workers were very cheap, so he hired a Polish builder to demolish the houses, a Polish hunter to catch and truss the pigs, and a Polish butcher to do what a butcher does. One little pig was minced up, had a few herbs added, and was turned into many varieties of delicious sausages. The second little piggy was salted and sliced up to become delicious ham and bacon. And the fattest little piggy was smoked and cut into chunks, schnitzels and steaks. How I wish i could be that big bad wolf.

We went to Krakow, Poland last weekend, and i must say the highlight of my weekend was the pork! I think i even managed to eat only meat for a whole day, well maybe a touch of cheese as well, possibly a bit of saurkraut. And it was all so cheap. The Poles definitely enjoy their meat, and unfortunately for Sarah, believe that vegetarian food is a meal in which the meat part of the dish is a smaller amount than the vegetable part.

We flew out Saturday morning, and after a stopover in Warsaw, arrived in Krakow about 5:00pm where it was already dark. after dumping our stuff at the hotel we followed the cobbled streets through the old town to the town square for the Christmas markets.

It was beautiful that first night, all the lights and decorations, the fog, drinking hot mulled wine while any exposed part of you is freezing. It wasn't till the next day we realised that the fog was actually pollution......

We walked the old part of town all the next day, exploring the castle, along the river bank, and through the Jewish quarter. A cafe here and there, and luckily for Sarah we found a real vegetarian restaurant - no meat anywhere!

All that walking meant we needed an afternoon nap, followed by a sauna, before retiring back to the Christmas market for a few more mulled wines, and then discovered the what we thought was honey vodka, but turned out to be just honey liqueur. Very yummy!

Sunday we visited the salt mines which were, surprisingly, spectacular. The salt is black until it is gound up, which is it when it turns white due to it's transparency. It is the oldest salt mine still operating in the world, and all the passages and rooms are carved into the salt, with a bit of wood here and there for support. One of the chambers has even been made into a cathedral, and there are statues and carvings everywhere. Even the tiles on the fl;oor are carved into the salt. At our lowest level we were 136m below the surface.

The city reminded me very much of the only other communist place i've been, Havana - dirty streets, pollution, and infrastructure that hasn't been modernised since the 60s. And like Havana, they love to drive old cars.

Something else i managed to do while in Poland, was to finally make it to the top of Mount Kosciuszko.