Visiting Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland
The
Wieliczka Salt Mine has been worked for some 900 years and reaches a
depth of about 327 meter (1,000 feet) below ground level. It is virtually
on the south-eastern outskirts of the city of Krakow and, during the
Middle Ages, was one of the world's biggest and most profitable
industrial establishments, as common salt was, commercially, the medieval
equivalent of today's oil.
One
well-traveled Frenchman observed in the eighteenth century that Krakow's
Wieliczka Salt Mine was no less magnificent that the Egyptian pyramids.
Millions of visitors, crowned heads and celebrities such as Goethe and
Sarah Bernhardt among them, have appeared to share his enthusiasm when
exploring the subterranean world of labyrinthine passages, giant caverns,
underground lakes and sculptures of Polish heroes, all carved from the
crystalline rock salt. They have also marveled at the ingenuity of the
ancient mining equipment.
The mine is
fully operational and produces about 20 tons of salt each day.
Increasingly, since the mid-eighteenth century, it has become a tourist
attraction. Every last inch of it has been carved out and fashioned by
hand and the chapel, measuring 54 by 17 meter (177 by 56 feet) and rising
to 12 meter (39 feet) in height, took 32 years to make, entailing the
removal of 20,000 tons of salt. The chapel is richly ornamented, and
everything is made of salt. The altarpiece, the chandeliers and the
sculptures and other religious artifacts are incredibly beautiful. The
unique acoustics of the place make listening to music here an exceptional
experience.
