The first of our tours begins today. I had made arrangements with a car service for transportation to the different locations I expected to go while in the Cracow area. One of these was to join an English speaking tour of the Wieliczka Salt Mines just outside of Cracow.
This is one of those tourist things that everyone tells you is a must for any vacation. I’ve been in a salt mine before so the idea wasn’t new to me. This is supposed to be one of the largest mines. It is one the UNESCO Heritage list. Busia told us we had to do this tour and we almost always listen to Busia.
Martin, the driver, picked us up at 10:00 in the morning outside of the hotel. This time it was a larger van with a handful of people already on board. There would be 12 of us going out to the mine this morning with the company. We found seats and enjoyed the ride out of town.
Driving is Cracow is very fast-paced. There does seem to be order to it, but you have to react very quickly. It reminds me of a road race and everyone running to the finish at the same time. So far, we haven’t seen any accidents. I don’t know if they don’t stop and just keep going or it happens less here than in the states.
We picked up all the people going on the tour and made it to the mines. Martin led us to the entrance and gave us over to the safekeeping of Sebastian, our tour guide for the trip. Apparently, the only way to really get into the mine is to have a tour already set up. Individuals can wait almost all day for a tour in their requested language. Sebastian spoke wonderful English.
With 30 people on the tour, I figured Sebastian was going to have his hands full today. We didn’t have that many incidents, so it was a good day for a tour.
We received headset devices so we could hear Sebastian in the mines. Once we were all on the same frequency, the devices worked well. No one had to have a new device or headset, yet. Sebastian began the tour by telling us what to expect and how we would work our way through the mine. First order of business was the descent into the mines. This was using approximately 300 wooden steps down.
I admired the craftsmanship of the stairs. They were beautiful and using a design I hadn’t seen before. I did notice the dark spots all over the stairs. Sebastian says this is chewing gum over the many years. I’m not sure it was all gum, but I bet they were stains of all kinds. Most are probably from peoples’ shoes. People can do some disgusting things from time to time though.
We made it to the bottom without incident and started the tour in the Nicholas Copernicus chamber. This is a good example of a chamber that was hollowed out and then a salt sculpture created for the room. Most of the chambers are dedicated to people who visited them or to royalty or deities. It was amazing to get the details of the sculptures and hear about the different kinds of salts in the mine. Even the floors had been carved into tiles in most of the chambers.
The mines are no longer actively worked. The last of the large salt deposit had been removed. Now it is too expensive and dangerous to continue for what deposits are left. For one, there is a town directly overhead of the mines and blasting is out of the question. Mining by hand is too expensive. There are open pit mines in other locations that can produce more salt.
The mining here is just to preserve the current structures. The mines are accumulating ground water that has to be pumped out. That water is salty and has to be desalinated before they can get rid of the water. This produces some salt, but not a large quantity. There are structural engineers and miners who work in the mines to do this preservation, so it is still an active mine in that sense.
Displays through the mines show how the miners worked. Even horses were brought down to do some of the heavy lifting. Most of the horses were brought down as colts and lived their entire lives down there. They apparently were well cared for by the miners. One of the last horses had been lifted out of the mine and was living a retired life in the fields these days at 29 years of age.
We made it to the main chapel that was carved out of the very large rooms. There are reliefs on the wall of biblical scenes. There are large salt statues around the room. It is amazing to see the work that had been done here by the miners themselves. It is very impressive. We had time to look around and get up close with a lot of the sculptures.
Before going into the chapel, Sebastian pointed out the bathrooms and told us they were largest underground pit toilets. I had to go and check it out, of course. Very nice. By the way, the Polish word for toilet is toalety. That word was very easy to learn and very quick to find around town.
We were making our way around on the tour when the first incident occurred. A British lady had trouble coming down one of the sets of stairs. I didn’t see it, but I understand that she tripped and caught herself. She did need a new headset as she mangled the one she had on. We found a seat for her to rest as we looked at one of the exhibits showing how the salt was transported underground using a Hungarian dog. This is a cart developed in the Hungarian mines. They were called dogs because they sounded like dogs whimpering when they moved.
We continued to move further down in the mines. I think at one point I had a sign that said 1300 meters down. We finally reached the lowest point that we would go in one of the ballrooms and then we began to start the journey back up.
The last stage of the journey to the surface was in a miners’ cage that held 8 people. Rich had to duck to stand inside. We were cramped in really good. The system consisted of 2 cages with one on top of another. We were loaded into the bottom cage.
A pair of Swedish ladies from Canada was on the tour with us. I noticed that one of them got away and was somehow with another tour. I explained this to Sebastian and he went out to wrangle her back in. He said he had never lost anyone before. This might have been the first time.
Back on the surface, you had to wind your way through three or four different gift shops before you could make a break for the door. I believe they were trying to tell me I had to buy something. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the need to have a souvenir from the mines.
I do have to tell you about the four young British kids on the tour. They looked to be early 20s at most. I believe we joined them with Sebastian’s group when Martin dropped us off. I noticed that they were carrying bags of chips, drinks, and candy with them. All along the tour, they were eating constantly. It was amazing to watch them as they walked the tunnels and even climbing the stairs. So that was two and a half hours of eating!
One thing to note is that you could see the salt crystals in the air around us when I took a picture. At first, I thought my camera lens was dirty. Then I realized that the crystals in the air were reflecting the flash. It gave a strange quality to the pictures. Also, I then began to think about breathing in those crystals. That probably why my sinuses started running a bit. It was like drinking in saltwater!
Back up top, we were instructed to go back to the bus and meet Martin there. Rich and I headed back to the parking lot and found Martin with the bus. I noticed the pair of Swedish ladies had followed us. It took a while for the others to come along. I assume the gift shops snagged them until they ran out of money.
Back on the road again, Martin went by Schindler’s Factory to drop off a few people who had paid for that tour also. The Swedish ladies got off and asked to do that tour, even though they hadn’t paid for it. Martin was patient and took them to the window to see if he could get them included. He came back on his own, so I assume he was successful.
Martin dropped the remainder of us close to the main square. Since we were in the square, we decided to get coffee and cake before looking at the underground displays for St Adalbert’s and the main square. Rich wanted nalesniki, but we couldn’t find the sweet version. As we walked by one of the outdoor cafés, a waitress enticed us with cheesecake. We went into the area and sat down. The coffee was good and the cake would tide us over until the evening meal since we missed lunch.
At St. Adalbert’s Church, we walked down the stairs to the lower level. The steps into the exhibit were wide and very uneven. Once inside, the exhibit had a display for a 10th century wooden church on the lowest level. Above that level, a 12th century Roman church had been built. The church above us had been built later in the 14th century. A cut away section showed all of the different levels that they found starting in the 900s through the current day.
We walked over to the Cloth Hall to find the office where you purchase tickets for the Rynek Underground. The Rynek Glowny is the Polish name for the main square. With tickets in hand, we went into the entrance and proceeded to make our way day the ramp to the start of the exhibits. The entire set of exhibits was provided in a number of languages. We always selected the English version to see the details.
The exhibit takes you from the early roads and square that began in this area in about 980 AD. You can see the road they have preserved and how it was built. The exhibit then continues through time to the 1200s when the last layer in the exhibit is explained.
The original stalls for the Cloth Hall, or Rich Stalls it was called, are still here under the city. They use the stalls to show you how the wares were displayed by the merchants. There are even storage areas for inventory. Once you see upstairs on the surface and then see the elaborate stalls and massive size of the original hall, it is impressive.
There is one hallway that has portraits of some of the kings and queens from this time period. Once the kings, Casimir III, looks just like Rich! It was a little spooky and I had to show him. They have the same features and even the moustache is the same. The cool thing is that the portraits are electronic and move. Some nod to you, wink, or even brush away a bee. It’s almost like the portraits in the Harry Potter movies.
So we finished up the exhibit and I was exhausted. I convinced Rich to go back to the hotel for a bit. Once we rested and determined we were on our own, we were trying to decide where to go and eat. We stopped at the front desk to ask for a recommendation. The receptionist gave a card for a restaurant just down the street from the hotel.
Restauracja Galicyjska was in the wine vault of one of the large homes at the end of the street. We walked down a few flights of stones steps and out into a lovely vaulted area. We were seated in the corner of one vault. It was a fancier restaurant than we had expected, but it was vacation. We ordered wine and Rich got a beer. With the card we got from the hotel, we received a complimentary cider, which was excellent.
Rich ordered filet of boar and I ordered the fish in lemon sauce. It was all to die for. We even ordered Zurek soup to start. It might have been the best so far. Rich has lots of ideas for improving on his Zurek soup. We ended with coffee (cawa cznerzia) and raspberry sorbet with cheesecake. At the very end, the waiter brought complimentary honey liquor as the after dinner. Rich never turns that down.
We wandered back down the street to our hotel. It was time to relax and enough the food coma. I’ve eaten so much food and I think I’ve still lost weight. My jeans are loose! Well, time to write a blog and post a few pictures.
ADDENDUM: Rich reminded me that he had kawa krakowkau at the Galcian restaurant. This coffee with Polish vodka. I don’t really like vodka, but this was good stuff.
