Day 6 - A Sombre Day

An early start in Poland this morning as we took the 8.30am tour around the salt mine. It began with a walk down 54 sets of stairs, dizzying. That took us about 110 metres below the ground and in to a labyrinth of tunnels and "caves". There were two further levels to descend dropping us to 135m below ground at the lowest point. The mined caves had been put to good use, some transformed into churches, other areas could be hired as function rooms. Some of the miners had not only mined the salt but produced some fantastic sculptures through the ages. Difficult to photograph in the available light so it was time to resort to high ISO and wide apertures (thankful for my 50mm f1.8!). An example here.

After the mine we travelled on to Auschwitz. This is not the kind of landmark you enjoy going to, but we wanted to feel the place and try to better understand. During the tour the weather fluctuated from sun to hail and snow then back to sun again, only adding to the feeling of instability of the place. It is difficult to put it into words what we felt visiting here - we must all never let humanity organise itself like this again.