Wieliczka Salt Mine (27/11/2016)

My parents, brother and cousin had come to see me for a weekend in Krakow, and after showing them the city for two days, after my parents had left, my brother and cousin decided to stay one day longer. So the morning after we woke up and caught a bus right in front of my houses headed for the town of Wieliczka. Only 12 kms south east of Krakow, the town is famous for its Salt Mine which was opened in the 13th century and continuously used until 2007. Together with Bochnia, which I had visited in October, it is a Unesco world heritage site, and one of the oldest salt mines in the world; the oldest being in fact the one in Bochnia. It was begun as the royal mine under the direct control of the Polish crown and has been giving salt throughout the centuries. So after getting of the bus 20 minutes later from when we caught it, we headed to the salt mine's entrance. The ticket price was very hefty, especially compared to Bochnia and average polish prices; the discounted ticket was 69zl and full one, for my brother, was 89zl. After buying the tickets we waited for our guide and group who then led us down a set of long wooden stairs and into the ground. The guide was an old polish man who spoke english, russian and german, his accent was quite bad and seemed like he was repeating the same things fifty times a day so not much enthusiastic about it. So after explaining us about the mine's history we started the visit of the mines. We saw several statues sculpted in salt by miners and also modern artists, so both old and modern figures. We walked through tunnel and into rooms, the most amazing of which was the Chapel of St Kinga with its huge size and salt chandeliers. We then continued on, reached a large room filled with water, and a huge wooden horse treadmill used to move and carry the buckets of salt. The lowest point we had reached was 130 meters below ground level, and outside being winter and cold, as the inside is +16 all year long it was quite nice. As the tour came to end, we found there was even an underground restaurant, which we stupidly chose to eat in, and paid quite a lot and the food wasn't so good. After that we headed out by taking the old elevator shaft the miners used to take and reached the top.  Once outside, we decided to check out the old town. We passed by the old castle and the town's main church and then reached the main square. A little outside and in the forest we then visited the wooden Church of St Sebastian dating to the 18th century. It was then time to go and walking back towards the city center we caught the next bus headed back for Krakow.

The salt statue of Copernicus inside the mine

One of the many salt tunnels

St Kinga's Chapel

Wieliczka's main square