I’d booked a tour of the Wieliczka Salt Mine yesterday. It’s situated south east of Krakow. I took a (rather late and busy) bus journey out to the mine for the tour.
The mine itself was very impressive; apparently it’s the largest in the world, and is on the UNESCO world heritage list for its rock carvings.
The tour was well organised, but felt a little bit of a conveyor-belt. It was about 2km walking, which is only 1% or so of the total mine’s tunnels.
The highlight of the tour was a huge chapel that the miners had built; everything was carved from salt, including the crystals on the chandeliers
The mine’s history of tourism was much longer than I’d have guessed – I think the guide said it started in the 1700s (though parts of the mine were much older). One of the caverns had been flooded with brine back then to make it nicer for tourists (you have to use brine or it’ll dissolve the salt)
Some of the supports that’d been added were really impressive too:
It was a good afternoon out – the whole thing took about 2.5 hours (including a bit of a wait for the lift back up to the surface). A little more on the more recent history of the mine would’ve been good (it closed in 1996), but definitely worth a visit