The Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Krakow area. We visited the mine on a weekday in August 2014. We arrived just in time to get tickets for the first English tour at 8.30 am. It was not very crowded, but the barrier tapes and signposts in several languages indicated that they expect a rush of visitors during the day.

The tour starts with 380 steps downstairs to the first level. And the first thing you see is - wood, lots of wood, massive trunks and beams for supporting the walls and ceiling. They must have cut down a whole forest only for the section of the visitors route. The inscribed area is almost 1000 hectare large and has about 300 kilometres galleries on nine levels, the deepest being more than 300 metres underground. But the guided walk is only about two kilometres long, less than one percent of the entire mine.

Salt mines are distinct from other mining sites: less dusty and narrow, but with spacious excavation chambers. First we walked through several small chambers where historic techniques of salt mining are shown, for example a horse powered winch for transporting the salt, water wheels, or the combustion of the methane gas. Sculptures carved from rock salt and small chapels illustrate the profound religiosity of the miners. What you would not expect one hundred metres underground: a church of remarkable size, entirely carved from the salt including all the necessary components: altar, stoup, pulpit, crucifix, bas-reliefs, even the tile pattern on the floor, and - inevitable - a statue of Pope John Paul II.

But I was even more impressed by the second part of the tour with the most fascinating chambers. Some have brine lakes where the illumination produces beautiful reflections on the water surface (e.g. in the Weimar chamber), others with huge wooden scaffolds such as in the Michalowice chamber (photo). The tour ends at the third level (135 metres) in front of a two-metre high WHS sign, of course carved from the rock salt with the names of the twelve sites that have been inscribed in 1978. Finally, we had to go through an area with souvenir shops, restaurants, conference rooms, and all these things until we got to the elevator that took us back to the surface. The Wieliczka mine is a fascinating site and well worth the steep price of about 18 Euro.

A few days later we visited the Bochnia mine, about 30 km from Wieliczka. Unfortunately, there were only tours in Polish language at the day of our visit, thus we could not fully appreciate the multimedia presentations, but the children on our tour seemed to have fun with speaking holograms and sound effects. We walked about two hours through galleries and chambers, a part of the route is covered by an underground train. The tour can be extended by a boat trip on a narrow channel, actually that was the best part of the visit. All in all the Bochnia mine is less impressive compared to Wieliczka, the chambers are smaller and less fascinating.

I would not recommend to visit both mines unless you have a great passion for mining sites. But the Wieliczka mine should not be missed when you visit Krakow.