Salt Mine

Last night we received advice from the hotel we had booked in Kosice, our next port of call, that the apartment we had booked had been flooded by a recent tenant and was unavailable and they had no other accommodation.

We accepted their offer to find us alternative digs and they confirmed with us early this afternoon that they had booked us in the Hotel Ambassador in similar quality accommodation with the facilities we require - so all is well (we hope).

This morning we travelled to Wieliczka to tour the salt mine that was in commercial operation producing table salt until 2007.


We went 135km below ground level, saw 22 chambers (1% of the chambers in the mine) and travelled approx. 2 kms of the 287kms tunnels in the mine.

The temperature in the mine is between 14-16C whereas in the early days of the mine before proper ventilation etc. was installed the miners worked in upwards of 40C - the early days for this mine was the 13th century.

One of the main features is a chapel deep in the mine carved out of the salt rock -


it truly is an impressive chamber, which took 3 men 69 years to construct. There is


an altar at one end and a statue of Pope John Paul II at the other (not unnaturally


the Poles are very proud of JPII as he was the Bishop of Krakow at the time of his papal election) - a mass is celebrated every Sunday in this chapel. The walls have


beautiful religious scenes carved in them and the chandeliers are also made of rock


salt.

There are other huge chambers from where the salt has been excavated, one of the


largest took over 100 years to excavate! The structure in the above photo is the wooden supports that have been installed to give the roof of the chamber support and also gives a good impression of the height of this chamber.

After around 2.5 hours we returned to the surface and were transported back to Krakow which left us the rest of the afternoon and evening to explore this city.

The city is dominated by the largest city square we have seen in our European travels. The middle of the square is dominated by Cloth Hall which was once the centre of international trade and which contains some upmarket souvenir shops


The square also contains St Mary's Church and the Town Hall Tower





We then walked down


to see Wawel Castle built in the 13th century and now housing significant Polish


art work (the photo doesn't do justice to the castle).

On the other side of the square is the Florian Gate and the Barbican built in 1498





to provide a defence to the city at that time.

Krakow is the second largest city in Poland and appears to be a very vibrant city with some beautiful architecture.

All of the people we spoke to in shops, restaurants etc. could speak good English and were a delight to deal with.

dziękuję krakow i do widzenia!