Magic White Gold: A Journey into the Wieliczka Salt Mine

It lies deep in the earth, the white gold. For hundreds of years, people have been digging and digging here for the substance that is the salt in the soup... 64 floors go down on a wooden staircase, further and further into the salt mine tunnel, always to the left.

A look over the banister reveals an endless abyss surrounded by black stone that glows from within. If you hold a flashlight to it, it turns white. Of course, everything here is made of salt: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, because we are in the Wieliczka Salt Mine (Kopalnia Soli Wieliczka) in the southern Polish town of Wieliczka near Krakow.

800 steps down

The salt mine is a magnet for visitors underground. As part of the Unesco World Heritage Site of the Royal Salt Mines of Wieliczka and Bochnia, it lies 135 meters underground.

800 steps lead down, where winding corridors around three kilometers long run through an enchanted mining town that not only has numerous chapels and altars, but even a huge church carved from pure salt.

The healing effects of salt are well known. But for Wieliczka, the “White Gold,” as it is called because of its importance to Poland, has a much bigger role than just being a medicine. For Poland, the salt mine was a treasure: in the 13th century and in the centuries that followed, miners extracted the basis for Poland's prosperity from the earth.

Sick people came in because a stay in the mine can relieve respiratory problems. But the most remarkable thing are the works of art that the miners created underground: a unique, cultural asset that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. It builds a bridge between tradition and modernity and reflects Poland's connection to mining.

2.350 chambers deep down

However, there are 378 steps before encountering a piece of world cultural heritage. Every year around 900,000 visitors descend these wooden stairs to level one, the top floor of one of Poland's most popular tourist attractions. Salt has been mined here since the second half of the 13th century and until today.

The mine has an incredible 2,350 chambers, 240 kilometers of corridors and 180 connecting shafts. The comparatively short 2.2 kilometer long tourist route leads through 40 chambers, including the most important, largest and most beautiful.

Greeted with the Polish miner's greeting "Szczesc Boze", we go down the steps. The first cave is dedicated to the famous astronomer Nicholas Copernicus, who is said to have visited the mine in the 15th century.

Other chambers depict the work of miners in the Middle Ages. In the part of the mine used for tourist tours, there are easily accessible corridors, whitewashed walls and developed steps. And of course there are always chambers that show in different ways how salt was mined.

Horses for the power

The tools you see bear witness to both the hard work and the ingenuity with which technical aids were created and used several hundred years ago. Above all, it can be seen that salt mining was difficult physical work. Even horses were kept in eternal darkness down here, some of which lived underground for years. At least they received a lot of attention, as the guides report: Since they were dependent on their “horsepower,” a worker personally looked after the well-being of each horse.

But these are all trivialities. The real highlight of the mine is the chapel dedicated to Saint Kinga in a 54 meter long, 18 meter wide and 12 meter high salt chamber. A fantastic work of art underground: crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling, in the niches there are statues of saints that are lit from behind and appear strangely transparent.

It's always a Pope in Poland

A monument to the Polish Pope John Paul II should not be missed. You go down via a gigantic kind of staircase. On the left wall reliefs with a 3D effect!, on the right statues of saints... It's unbelievable that this was all made of salt. And not by great sculptors and artists, but by a few workers who carved and sculpted for decades and immortalized their devotion to God, Jesus, the Pope and the saints.

So far, this is not just a museum, but a real underground church where services take place regularly. The chapel is also frequently used for concerts and theater performances. Getting married in the Kinga Chapel is not only popular with miners. Up to 400 guests are allowed to come: the chapel is more like a cathedral, it has 465 cubic meters of space. The best way to see her majesty is from above.

Famous visitor Goethe

The tour doesn't end with this highlight, it still continues through the depths for around half an hour. The other chambers are hardly less impressive. The Weimar Chamber commemorates one of the people with a Goethe monument at the entrancemost famous visitors. Together with the Prince of Weimar, the poet visited Wieliczka on September 6, 1790.

In the chamber with an underground lake, much later and already hollowed out with explosives, flashes of light flash along the rock walls while a nocturne by Chopin plays from loudspeakers, interwoven with explosion sounds that are reminiscent of the use of dynamite in mining. The salt lake, from which salt is still extracted today, was simply beautiful to look at. The salt content of the water is higher than in the Dead Sea.

An underground factory

The Stasyic Chamber, on the other hand, has a dark past and, with a height of 35 meters, is the highest on the tourist route. From spring to autumn 1944, the Germans set up an underground armaments factory here using Jewish forced laborers. Only when the Red Army approached did its use for the German war industry end. The occupiers fled.

If you get hungry or thirsty during the mine tour, you don't have to wait for the elevator to the surface. In the Witold-Budrzk Chamber, 123 meters underground, there is a rustic pub in the southern Polish rustic style. You can gather new strength with Barszcz - red beet soup - or Pierogi. In the neighboring Warsaw Chamber, the pit restaurant is much more elegant.

Information about the salt mine: www.kopalnia.pl

Quickly take the train to the Wieliczka salt mine

Getting there by train is really very easy. From Kraków Central Station (Kraków Główny) there is a train every 30 minutes to the final station Wieliczka Rynek-Kopalnia. You can buy the ticket in advance at one of the machines at the main station - simply enter the departure and arrival stations. You can find the timetable on the page kolejemalopolskie.com.pl . If you don't want to take the train, there are also bus tours from Krakow including a tour of the salt mine*.

Tickets for the Wieliczka Salt Mine

If you want to get your tickets for the salt mine yourself, it's best to do so in advance online on the website kopalnia.pl. Admission tickets are also available on site - but then there is the risk of a queue and then a long wait for the next free tour. I chose the tourist route with my girlfriend. Alternatively, there is the miner's route, where you can recreate the everyday life of a miner - which takes almost a whole day.

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