Wielicza Salt Mine

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We stayed overnight near Krakow and then went to the Wielizca Salt Mine. We managed to catch one of the English tours. The trip starts by going down around 400 stairs - Around and around 6 stairs down, a landing, another 6 stairs down, a landing over and over. There are a number of salt statues and they have been able to demonstrate how the mine worked over the ages by using figures of miners etc made out of salt. Most of the rock is gray because of a few impurities, but where it has dissolved in the underground water and recrystallised it is white. If there are some iron impurities it becomes pink. There are a myriad of tunnels, opening into chambers - some of them are huge, and even a number of small chapels and then a large one with chandeliers - made of salt of course - and a number of statues and bas reliefs carved into the walls. At the end of the tour we were able to shop underground, and had a meal as well 130m down. We had some traditional type food - Rye and sausage soup for me and bean soup for Alison. We texted Chris from underground as well - just to prove it can be done even though it was 11:30 at in Dunedin. The tour took us till mid afternoon then we drove south - back across the border - into Slovakia for the first time. There is obviously a huge amount of money being spent on the roads in Poland. The roads can be awful - potholes patched and then patches on the patches, ruts and big drop offs on the side. But lots of work being done - on the way out of Poland we had about 30km of almost continuous roadworks - often one lane - or controlled with traffic lights, and not always well sign posted. The border structures - buildings and road lanes etc - were all in place but no one there, and the road diverted around the buildings, so again no checks at all at the border, but a bit confusing driving. The first campground we had chosen was both skungy and closed, we travelled on to Oravice where there was a campground which was open but no-one in reception and no-one in the campground. We parked overnight there, as the van is self contained. Opposite the campground was a thermal pool and a brand new chairlift and ski field - there are lots of new ones going in - so investment in tourism as well as roads.

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Photos

Wielicza Salt Mine
this is the huge Chapel - the chandaliers are made of salt as are the various statues