Monday, 24-June-2024
I woke up Monday morning earlier than normal, scarfed down a pair of protein bars and sipped down an instant latte, called a Bolt (ride-share service), and got on the road to Wieliczka.
This was the morning. The day that I’d tick an item off my top-level bucket list. An item that’d been there pretty much as long as I can remember.
The Wieliczka salt mines of Poland.
I can’t tell you when I first heard of them, though my memory tells me that I’d heard that they had inspired Peter Jackson in his direction for the Mines of Moria in The Fellowship of the Ring… Looking online today, I can’t find anything to corroborate that memory, but I’m keeping it as my own. So… 2001 era, nearly 20 years.
The culmination of 20 years of desire to see the underground caves that had inspired Dwarven architecture throughout fantasy – from Lord of the Rings to Dragon Age, from World of Warcraft to The Witcher, and countless others.
I arrived just before my tour started. Hopped out of the car, rushed to the entryway to join my tour group, and descended into the mines.
I’d actually booked this tour a few months ago, after learning that there’s no unsupervised exploration of the salt mines allowed – which makes sense, from a safety perspective, but still made me a little sad.
Anyways, the tour guide was lovely, his English was excellent, and our descent precipitous – the start of the tour was 380 steps, taking us 64m (210ft) into the Earth. As the tour progressed, we’d continue lower of course, but for now we started into the long dark of the first level…
Which wasn’t really dark, truth be told. But holy crap was it beautiful! The whole mine was salt and timber – the remains of an ancient prehistoric sea, compressed into solid rock salt, and the timber used to reinforce the tunnels that the miners had dug throughout the deposit. Pretty much everything you see in the pictures is one of those two materials – the walls, ceilings, and floor may have been carved to look like tile, or brick, or other stone… but shine a light up to them (or lick them, which is supposedly a tradition for Polish schoolkids) and you’ll quickly realize that they’re simply… salt.
The air carried the tang of salt as well – from what our guide told us, miners here (along with the horses that assisted them) actually tended to live healthier lives that those top-side… and were far healthier than any similar coal miners. Similar to living by the ocean, the salt of the mines being quite good for the respiratory system. It was cool, fairly quiet, and simply gorgeous.
As we descended deeper, we saw more and more chambers – all carved deep into the salt as the miners had dove deeper. We learned more history from our guide (and the omni-present informational placards) – learning how the mines had first been discovered thousands of years back by Neolithic tribes, who boiled the briney water from the nearby springs to get the salt needed to preserve their food and supplement their diets.
We learned about the Polish queen who, in years past, requested a team of miners as a dowery… and who then led the development of the mines. Mines that, it turned out, generated nearly 30% of the entire revenue of the Polish Crown at their height.
I could go on for hours about all the amazing things I learned, and the stunning sights that I saw. We spent nearly three hours on the Tourist Route – three hours of absolute wide-eyed joy on my part. I can’t describe how much I enjoyed the adventure, and as a bonus I learned about a few more salt mines in the area that I jotted down as ideas for future trips…
For now, though, the tourist route tour ended. Finishing up at the “Miner’s Cafe”, we were perfectly timed as hunger (and a need for some coffee) was starting to tickle the back of my mind. I thanked the guide, got some amazing lunch and some glorious dippin’ dots ice cream, and prepared myself for the next phase of the adventure – the Museum Route!
