Wieliczka Salt Mine

It's our last morning in Krakow and we head just outside the city to the famous salt mines at Wieliczka. The massive deposits of rock salt were discovered in the 13th century, and mining continued until 1964. Even today, salt is produced from the mine but now it consists of the industrial production of evaporated salt using the wet mining method. Tourism is now one of the main sources of earning for the mine, although only about 2% of the entire mine can be accessed during the tour.

The guided tour starts with a winding staircase that takes you 64 metres down over 380 steps. From there the tour covers around 3.5km of tunnels and stairways over the course of 2 hours. In total there are around 800 steps and the tour reaches to 135m underground.

Along the way there are a mixture of tunnels and huge chambers, many containing original or reconstructed ropeways, lifting mechanisms and rail tracks. There are also a large number of statues and artworks which the miners, untrained in art or sculpture, carved out of the rock salt. Many of them are exquisitely detailed and there are depictions of many famous Polish and German people who visited the mines over the years, including Copernicus, von Goethe, King Casimir III, and Pope John Paul II, who was Archbishop of Krakow.

In the latter half of the tour there are several huge chambers, including a massive chapel with scenes from the bible carved into the walls.

At the end of the tour there is a strange multi-story lift with tiny compartments which whisks us back up to the surface in under 30 seconds.

We now leave Jenny and Eoghan who are heading back to Ireland, and start a 4.5 hour drive north through Poland, almost to the border of Germany. After over 6 weeks of driving East, we are finally heading West back towards Cherbourg where we will get the ferry home to Ireland.

We were clearly in for an easy (but long) day's driving, as less than 10 minutes after leaving the mine we both laughed when Google Maps told us to stay on the same road without turning for over 400km!