One of the touristy things to do in Krakow is a visit to the salt mines. It sounds a bit yawn-inducing, but this salt mine is more of an underground city than a hole in the ground. Anything with caves, hiking and climbing are on my kids’ must-do list so we headed out on the morning of day 2. We weren’t sure how much rain we’d be getting that day and figured it would be a good time to be underground and dry.
Walking to the bus. Lots of old beautiful buildings.
We stumbled upon the right bus (a miracle) and Josh figured out the ticket machine and we were off. 45 minutes later we arrived and had a short walk to the entrance of the mine. It was a bit like Disneyland with souvenir booths, food for sale and long lines of tourists.
We had about an hour before our timed tour with an English speaking guide so we had a lunch of Polish sausage with mustard, water with gas (sparkling water), coffee and ice cream. No $5 churros here. The food was cheap enough that Josh and Calvin went back and ordered seconds. The weather went from warm and sunny to a sudden downpour, but we pulled our chairs in toward the center of the umbrella and ate in the rain. Really fun.
We lined up with our fellow English speakers, got headsets to listen to our guide and started into the mine, 300+ steps down, down, down.
This is from the bottom, looking back up the shaft toward the top. I made the mistake of looking down part way through our descent and started feeling woozy.
We all had earpieces to hear our guide but every time he’d round a corner he’d start breaking up. “this– the end–1857– the men . . .” I missed much of the content, but the most important part is that it’s ALL made up of salt.
Yes, it’s lickable.
Yep, that’s salt too. There are salt sculptures and carvings in every room.
More salt sculptures. These are life sized. I think they are telling the story of how the salt mine came to be. And other rooms demonstrate the method they used for removing the salt from the mines.
The humidity down below creates moisture on the surface of the salt and as it evaporate it creates this cauliflower effect. Some of the rooms have stalactites hanging from the ceilings. The guy said they have to knock them down once each year to keep them from growing too big.
A demonstration of how the early miners had to burn off the methane gas that would collect in pockets — they’d walk around with a torch and crossed fingers waiting for something to blow up.
Salt, salt, more salt.
Tons of underground walking. The tunnels went on forever. Supposedly we walked about 2.5k, but the guide said that was only 1% of the tunnels.
Bob, picking salt off the wall to eat.
One of the kings. Salt.
Hiking down more stairs, further and further into the mine
Bob tasted this water too. I was sure he was going to get some sort of stomach issues from all his wall licking and tasting (though salt is an excellent bacteria killer). The water was super salty too.
They keep the tunnels with the sculptures air conditioned to remove the humidity from the air. This is what happens when they don’t — they “melt.”
Wooden Jesus. Not salt. The miners used to come visit before starting work each day as protection against their dangerous jobs. (I think that’s what the guide said. Don’t quote me on that.)
Wooden Mary (these two are the only 2 wooden sculptures down below). Mary is stomping on the crescent moon, a symbol of the Muslim faith.
The HUGE underground church. Salt stairs, salt floors, salt carvings on every surface. Not salt chandeliers.
Worth every step. It was breathtaking.
Salt nativity
Modern Dome of the Rock behind Mary and Joseph and Jesus headed to Egypt — a bit anachronistic.
Pope John Paul II is beloved in Krakow because he was their priest before he became pope. His image is everywhere.
As low as we go today — 425 feet underground.
After the tour was over, we gathered in the underground restaurant for a meal of Polish favorites: sour soup with sausage, fried cabbage, beets and other yummy things that taste better in Poland than anywhere else. We were told after we exited there would be an elevator to take us back to the surface.
But they didn’t tell us that we would have to walk a mile or more to get to the elevator.
Not a big deal, except the guy leading us was going at a sprinter’s pace and started the walk out by yelling at us in Polish so the entire way out had a much darker feel than the way in. Josh joked that we were probably on our way to “the showers” or that we were going to have to grab picks and work our way out before they’d let us go. Completely insensitive joking, but it felt the same way to me too. Especially with Josh’s parents trying to keep up it felt a bit like they were going for a survival of the fittest approach.
They did actually let us leave eventually and we bussed our way back to Krakow, relaxed a bit before dinner, and then headed into old town again to eat dinner on the square. We ate outside wrapped in blankets, sipping hot mulled wine and laughing as twilight slowly switched over to dark.
We’ve been eating at 8:30 because it’s light out until almost 10!
Another gorgeous night on the square. Love you, Krakow!