Poland and Czechia - Krakow and into Slovakia

 We had intended to stay three nights in Krakow to look at Auswitz/Birkenau, the famous Wawel Royal Castle, and the salt mines at Wieliczka. However, Krakow had decided to say no.

Krakow introduced a low emission zone in January, basically covering the entire city inside the ring road and unfortunately including all the camp sites. It's quite harsh, and basically won't allow in any diesel engines built before 2014. There were ways around it, but you needed to apply in advance and pay an hourly charge.

Fortunately the Salt mines were outside the zone, and the allowed us (for a fee of course) to park up overnight in the car park.

The salt mines themselves are huge, and they descent over 300 metres, so there is a LOT of walking involved. Apparently they have proof of the mines being used in Neolithic times to make salt lamps!

At each chamber you reach the have tried to set up scenes of what happened there mainly in the mid 1600's. After that in the 1800's they built superb churches and meeting halls mad entirely out of salt - including the chandeliers. All very impressive.







We now had some days to spare, so decided to drop down into Slovakia, and drove through some beautiful scenery to a town called Bardejov, in the sports centre car park. However, it was baking hot, and a public holiday so everywhere was closed (apart from Tesco and Lidl!). We didn't fancy hanging around on hot concrete so decided to move on about another hour to a site near the town of Leveco.
It was a nice site, with chalets, bunk houses and a hotel. We were the only people there, only bird song for company, and very relaxing it was.

Campsites in Slovakia are relatively sparse, but we found one we liked the look of about three hours away (it said), but was actually five hours as we came upon the Tatra mountains. They are stunning, and the equal of the Alps - but it did mean I had to put Bunty through some tough climbs.











 The campsite turned out to be delightful. Owed and run by a Dutch couple for 16 years, they have slowly turned it into something quirky. Everything in run on an honour system, even the bar was a help yourself deal - just mark what to used on a sheet and it would be totalled when leaving. And it was cold beer on tap, too.





Today we are heading off to Bratislava, another three hour drive.

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