Wieliczka Salt Mines: Bit of salt never harmed anybody

As I was saying before I realised my post had got too long… Yesterday, I went to the Wieliczka salt mines. There were two other people in my taxi / little red tour bus. Two older American women from California who had spend the last week and a bit doing the Eastern European tour from Prague, Budapest, Krakow before heading onto Warsaw. I haven’t met many well-travelled Americans before, but since they were doing a lot better than me, I didn’t like to say anything ๐Ÿ™‚ “I was in Russia in 1973, but since it was the iron curtain days, we weren’t really allowed to go anywhere because we hadn’t pre-arranged it before.” And this one, this one’s my favourite…

“I was in London a few years ago. I went into a supermarket and saw the most amazing queuing system. Everyone in one line until a cashier was available, where the person at the front stepped forward. Five or six of them there were.” Great, a queuing story. Yes, I get it, I’m British – we love to queue. “So I took a photo of it because I wanted to show people back home. I thought we could use that”. Autotrader eat your heart out. “And this big black woman comes up to me ‘NO PICTURES’ she yelled. Luckily I had a digital camera, so I showed her the only picture I had. ‘There, I deleted it, I’m so sorry'”.

Well at least we gave a good lasting impression, anyway. I assured the poor woman that it was just that we’re very proud of our queueing. We don’t like the secrets to get to other countries. She understood, and I’m sure felt a whole lot better about the terrifying ordeal. To put it another way, I gave in to the stereotype. I sold my soul.

Upon arriving at the Salt Mines, we were shown where to wait by our driver, a time to go in, a ticket and a place to sit. One of the Californians went for a walk before sitting down, “There’s a bunch of very good-looking students from Finland or something, all acting very girly and silly out there.” “And they’re heading this way, right?” I asked. “No, they’re just messing around.” “You dissapoint me”, I replied trying to give it my best dissapointed looking face.

When they walked inside, they were indeed all very loud, ear drums burst and grown men cried. 16,000 students around the age 17-19 all tried to squeeze onto the remaining 4ft of bench next to me. When one fell off her friends lap and fell into the 12mm gap between her friend and me, she giggled “Excusez moi”. “That’s okay”, I promptly replied, giving her my winning smile. Charm, wit and a real conversationist. That’s me.

We continued to debate whether these students were French, Finnish or from deepest darkest Africa. Armed with my new knowledge that they spoke French and that they wandered off into the mine with a tour guide with a French flag on his helmet … I think I faired rather well.

There are a little under 400 wooden steps leading down the first 65 metres to the first-level chambers. Despite the signs at the top of the staircase saying “No Grafitti”, there is a rather impressive collection of names scrawled into the woodwork all the way down, and all the way through the rest of the mine. I don’t exactly support graffitti of this world heritage site, but the enormity of this collection of signatures is really quite astounding. We travelled 2 kms through the small part of the mine that is open for tours. We visited maybe 12-15 different chambers and every passageway in between was filled with people writing their names, countries or favourite music. I feel as though it has reached such a point of a self-evolved guestbook that it would be a shame to now cover up this part of the mines history.

When I’m wandering around mines and caves as I so often find myself doing whilst on holiday – I always think of Ali and her unhealthy love of all things that are rock. She’s also the only one to leave a comment so far, so deserves this special mention ๐Ÿ˜‰ That’s probably going to put anyone else off leaving a comment at all, but oh well. Whilst I’m not sure your geological insight would have been particularly helpful in this visit, “Oh, oh, what’s that one ??” “Rock salt, Kevin.” “Wooooooow. What about this one!?” And so on… I’m sure you would enjoy a visit to Wieliczka all the same ๐Ÿ™‚

When I’m wandering around mines and caves as I so often find myself doing whilst on holiday – I always think of Ali and her unhealthy love of all things that are rock. She’s also the only one to leave a comment so far, so deserves this special mention ๐Ÿ˜‰ That’s probably going to put anyone else off leaving a comment at all, but oh well. Whilst I’m not sure your geological insight would have been particularly helpful in this visit, “Oh, oh, what’s that one ??” “Rock salt, Kevin.” “Wooooooow. What about this one!?” And so on… I’m sure you would enjoy a visit to Wieliczka all the same ๐Ÿ™‚

Nonetheless, our tour guide was great, proclaiming that every sculpture we saw had been carved from rock salt from the mine. The first of which was Copernicus, the famous Polish astronomer who is said to have visited the mine. And if we don’t believe her? Well, “every visitor to the mine is allowed to consume up to three kilos of the rock salt. It is included in the ticket price. We only ask that you do not do so from Copernicus, as he would soon disappear if every visitor did that.” When you spend most of your time giving tours in a salt mine, you develop a certain sort of sense of humour. I was enjoying the tour immensely.

All of which was great news to the group of four american students in our now-extended group. Last seen with their tongues stuck to a particularly cold piece of rock-salt.

The most breathtaking part of the tour was on the third level – 135m down. The Blessed Kinga’s Chapel was completed in the early part of the nineteeth century, stretches 50m long and is made entirely of rock salt. Everything. The stairs, the altar, bannisters, carvings, even the chandeliers. And if that’s not impressive enough, this work wasn’t completed by teams of sculptors. Instead, it formed the lifetime-work of 3 individual miners working one after another. It is truly amazing and definitely worth the visit alone. Scenes from the life of Jesus adorn the walls including his birth and the infamous last supper. Towards the back is a newer addition, a large statue of Pope John Paul II, and at the front an altar where every word can be heard all the way to the back up in the gallery. The venue has been used for concerts, a banquet hall (for ex-president George Bush Snr.), and mass is still celebrated here every Sunday. You can even rent the entire hall out for weddings for the bargain price of 1,000 US dollars per hour. As our guide explained “A bit expensive but you never know. I guess you’d only want to do it once.” Perhaps it’s not for me, after all.

Also, the fake salt lakes added entirely for the benefit of the tourists. They used to run “fairy boat rides”, until a group of drunk Russians started rocking their boat, got trapped under it and drowned. When you’re stuck under a boat in salt water it is very difficult to swim out from under it. The salt keeps you afloat and contains very little oxygen (there’s the maximum of 33-34% salt in this water, more than the red sea). So no fairy boat rides for us. But thanks for telling us anyway – we weren’t disappointed before.

Having walked down even more steps than the original 400, we were lucky enough not to have to climb what would be double that to get back out. Instead, there was the smallest two-levelled fastest lift in the world to take us back to the surface. With everyone crammed in tight enough that the doors wouldn’t close, we managed to fit a massive 20 people into what I’m quite sure was originally the prototype for a Silverlink Trains carriage. The lift operator lit the fuse, and the lift ascended at approximately 12,000mph.

By this time it had started raining quite heavily. The bright boiling hot sunshine was gone, and the evening and night was full of very loud thunder and lightning. It seems like it was a good day to do the underground tour after all ๐Ÿ™‚

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