Wieliczka is a special place. It was here that the city of Krakow, Poland, collected wealth from salt, taken out from way down under the surface.In the Middle Ages, salt was used to preserve food. Refridgerators were not yet around.
Several hundred years the salt mine gave work to many salt miners, and to around sixty horses that would draw the carriages with heavy loads through long tunnels, and to the elevators. Those were wooden boxes, tied to heavy ropes. The mine kept working until the 1990-ies, by that time of course with advanced technology.
Today, Wieliczka is a touristic place. Above the ground, there is nothing spectacular. But as soon as you enter and then leave the elevator that brings you down to the mine, you realize that you are entering a special, and truely historic place.
A highlight is the ballroom where you can celebrate – weddings, anniverseries, or have a dinner party. The chandeliers in the room are made of salt, as well as numerous figures and statues along the long underground pathes. In several places, churches and preaying rooms were set up. The miners had a dangerous work place, where methan gas could easily develop and endanger everyone working down there.
These pictures take you for a walk through a samll part of the mine.
