Poland & Berlin: Part 11 - Day 11: Wieliczka Salt Mine, Walking Tour

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 11.

31/7 Day 11: Wieliczka Salt Mine and guided walking tour from Free Walking Tour

Costs
(A) Food
(1) Breakfast at Awiterks cafe - Sandwich PLN7,99, Cappucino PLN11,99. Total PLN19,98 / SEK
(2) Banana at Carrefour - PLN3,37 (482g at PLN6,99 per kg)
(3) Coffee at cafe in Salt Mine - Cappucino PLN12, cheesecake PLN12. Total PLN24

(4) Dinner at Pod Leliwa restaurant - Potato pancakes with beef stew and mix salad PLN40, tomato juice 250ml PLN11. Total PLN51 / SEK135,27.

(B) Transport, attraction and miscellaneous
(5) Return commuter train ticket (station Krakow to Wieliczka Rynek-Kolpania to and fro) - PLN13 / SEK35,50 per person

(6) Ticket to Wieliczka Salt Mine Tourist Route 3 hours + graduation tower 30 minutes - PLN132 / SEK360,45 per person

(7) Tip to walking tour guide - Shared PLN50. PLN17 / SEK53,98 per person

The Story

31072023: Today morning, it is just my boyfriend and I to an outing as our travel companion has been to Krakow and has been to the place that we are going today - Wieliczka Salt Mine. We woke up early to get breakfast and be in time for our 9.38am commuter train. We took the opportunity to take some photos in front of statues as the town is empty.

The cafe that we had our breakfast is very close to the train station.

Our scheduled train is right on time. 

The commuter train has toilets too! I was pleasantly surprised. Our station is the last station on the train route. It took us 27 minutes only.

The train station is very near the salt mine. 300metres. It was very easy to find the salt mine as there were signboards everywhere. This salt mine is a UNESCO World Heritage!

Our tour started at 1030am and it comes with a guide who explained to us about the salt mine. I chose the tourist tour and it is only 1% of the mine. We walked down 800 stairs and descended up to 135 meters underground. It was 18 degrees inside - very cooling. The first level was 64 metres deep. I got dizzy going down the stairs. It was not a straight stairs down. I will faint if it is. It will be too scary. The stairs goes round and round downwards. 

There were lots of chambers in the mine and each chamber has a name. It also states the years the chambers were excavated. 

The floor is also made of salt. This salt mine is very clean, by the way as salt is anti-bacterial. That explains why I grew up soaking vegetables in diluted salt water and gargling my throat with salt solution when I have a sore throat. Salt kills all bacteria. 

All of the sculptures were made from salt. 

The many tunnels that we went through to go to the next chamber.

The final stop was a large hall with many sculptures from salt. The sculpturers were the miners. Amazing, huh!

Even the chandelier is sculpted from salt.

This is salt water. The water here has been saturated with salt so that the water cannot erode the walls in the mine. 

As mobile phones cannot work in the mine, there are telephones installed in some ares to make emergency calls where needed. Plus, the mine is so large. They will need telephones to contact one another.

The tour ended after 2 hours and we went down 53 levels. During the tour, I asked how was this place found. The guide said that someone found salt in a well and it developed to a mine after that. The salt mine is no longer active but it needs to continuously pump out water to keep the mine in shape otherwise the water will erode the mine. The mine produces a small amount of salt today, about 15000 tonnes every year. At the end of the tour, we took a 6-second ride up a mineshaft to the top. Then, we went to the Graduation Tower where one can sit and enjoy the sound of the running saltwater and inhale the fresh air. Apparently, the fresh air helps to clear the lungs. I could not feel the difference though.

One can go up the tower too and get a view from the top.

Then, we took the 2.10pm commuter train back to town. Back in town, we were in time to book a guided walking tour for 4pm. We booked 'Old Town Krakow'. It was a 2.5 hour walk where we went around old town and Wawel Hill. I did not know that Wawel Hill is a UNESCO World Heritage! How lucky that our guide went there too. 

At 5pm, we stopped in front of Saint Mary's Basilica where we got to hear a trumpeter who plays every hour. This is a tradition that where trumpet calls were used in many European cities to signal the opening and closing of city gates at dawn and dusk. 

This is Wawel Hill and on top of it lies Wawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral. The Cathedral is in its original form and many kings were crowned and buried here but this tradition discontinued when the last king chose to do the crowning ceremony in Warsaw. 

The guide informed us that Krakow was not destroyed during World War 2 as the town is not the capital of Poland and Krakow belonged to Austria then, and Hitler was from Austria. After the guided walking tour, it was time for dinner. We walked into a random restaurant and I had my favourite potato pancakes. During dinner, we discussed about the stories from the guided walking tours. I don't understand the purpose of war...