In our trip to Poland we have visited the Wieliczka salt mine, the most ancient in Europe, exploited since the 13th century (it has never been closed) and constructed on nine levels with 300 km of galleries. It has a maximal depth of 327 m and it’s 5 km long and 1 km large. In the galleries are found wells, corridors, labyrinths, excavations, rooms and chapel cut out of the salt with altars, pulpits and statues. There is also a subterranean lake. If you visit the mines you enter from the Dani³owicz Shaft, a steam engine built in 1874, and visit these rooms: Dani³owicz Shaft Bottom, Nicholas Copernicus Chamber, Chapel of St. Anthony, Janowice Chamber, Burnt Out (Spalone) Chamber, Sielec Chamber, Casimir The Great Chamber, Kunegunda Gallery, Pieskowa Ska³a Chamber, Kunegunda Traverse, Kunegunda Shaft Bottom, Chapel of the Holy Cross, Chapel of St. Kinga (54 m long, 15-18 m wide and 10-12 m high), Erazm Bar¹cz Chamber, Micha³owice Chamber, Drozdowice Chamber, Weimar Chamber, Józef Pi³sudski Chamber, Crossing of The Kazanów Longitudinal Gallery with The Poniatowski Traverse, Stanis³aw Staszic Chamber (36 m high), Warden, Witold Budryk Chamber, Warsaw Chamber (54 m long, 17 m wide and 9 m high), Vistula Chamber, Prinzinger Inclined Drift, Chapel of St. John and Jan Haluszka Chamber.

The mine is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen because of the beauty and the originality of the salt chambers and of the works of art. It's absolutely worth to be visited (if you want to visit it you must walk for 2,2 km with a guided tour) also because it's probably the most beautiful mine in the world and justifies the inscription also because there aren't many mines on the WHL.

Photo: Wieliczka: Janowice Chamber