For over seven hundred years salt was extracted from the mines at Wieliczka. During this time the miners famously created, in their spare time, detailed and ornate sculptures of astonishing proportions including, amongst many other works, converting excavated caverns into extremely elaborate chapels. This was done as an act of worship in the belief that God would then watch over and protect them in their hazardous working lives.

The route available to tourists comprises of twenty interconnected chambers which take the visitor from level one, sixty four metres below the surface, down to level three which is a whole one hundred and thirty five metres underground. At the end of the route are the Warsaw and Witold Budryk chambers, which during the day house a café and refreshments area but are also available for concerts, private functions and balls. Most astonishing of all this area has full mobile phone coverage which means visitors have the unique ability of making a mobile phone call from one hundred and twenty two metres beneath the surface of the earth!

Such is the historical significance of the salt mine that in 1978 it was included in UNESCO's first list of World Cultural and Natural Heritage sites.

 

For more information see the official website of the mines at WWW.KOPALNIA.PL

I should point out that in this particular section I have "borrowed" a few of the pictures from other sources. Due to the sheer size of some of the chambers and the limited light it is difficult to take reasonable quality pictures with the simple cameras we had available. Whenever I have used an image that is not an original taken during our visit I have credited the original source. Should any images be subjet to copyright or the original owner wishes them to be removed please e-mail me and they will be removed at the earliest opportunity.

 

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