Wieliczka, Poland
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Down on the backside of 380 dizzying steps, the partitions are an imperfect grey. They appear to be rock — however they style salty. How do guests know? They’re inspired to lick them.
Just to the southeast of Krakow, Poland’s second-largest metropolis, lies the underground realm of the Wieliczka Salt Mine — half cathedral, half industrial relic, half theme park.
Every day, as much as 9,000 guests descend into the mine, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Salt manufacturing at Wieliczka resulted in 1996. But after 700 years of operation, and greater than 150 miles of tunnels chiseled underground, it lives on as a vacationer attraction.
Over the centuries, miners at Wieliczka created 9 ranges of tunnels and chambers reaching 1,073 toes — practically 330 meters — under the floor. Today, round 2% of what they created stays open to the general public. Even that fraction is spectacular.
Accompanied by guides, guests can stroll the basic vacationer route — simply over two miles in about two hours — or go for the “miners’ route.” On the three-hour journey, they’re given a headlamp, helmet and emergency carbon monoxide absorber.
The vacationer route begins with the descent down these 380 steps — or a trip in an elevator. Labyrinthine passageways result in preserved chambers hollowed out from the rock by hand. Today, they’re full of statues, carvings and grand chandeliers that hint the mine’s historical past and supply perception into the lives of those that labored there. The vacationer route ends on the third underground stage, 450 toes under floor. The miners’ route runs between depths of 187 and 330 toes.
The salt partitions should not white as a result of the sodium choride isn’t pure, explains tour information Patrycja Antoniak, as she exhorts her guests to lick the surfaces. “Not there,” she warns, cueing up a giant “ewwww!” second. “Many people lick there.”
“Ninety to ninety-five percent of the rock is salt — sodium chloride — and impurities give the salt the gray color,” she says. In Wieliczka, the combination contains different minerals in addition to sand, silt, and claystone. Despite the colour, it’s nonetheless edible, Antoniak provides. “It was used to preserve food without being purified.”
Halite, the right identify for rock salt, varieties when historic our bodies of water evaporate. Some deposits are tons of of tens of millions of years outdated. The one at Wieliczka is comparatively younger — about 13.5 million years outdated.
Tectonic motion within the Carpathian Mountains later pushed the salt layers nearer to the floor, making them simpler to search out. Wieliczka comprises each “bedded” or layered deposits and “lump” deposits, the place probably the most ornate chambers are situated. Miners chiseled them out inch by inch till 1743, when gunpowder was launched. Mechanical drills adopted about 150 years later.
To stop collapse, miners left a layer of salt in every chamber. Today, the buildings are strengthened with trendy engineering, together with fiberglass rods inserted into the partitions.
A salt mine — and a gold mine
Excavation started within the late Thirteenth century, although salt had lengthy been important to life right here. Prehistoric communities boiled water from briny springs, evaporating it to gather salt that was traded as forex.
As demand grew, wells have been dug to entry brine, adopted by shafts. It was in one of these shafts that the primary lumps of rock salt have been found within the late 1200s.
In the 14th century, the mine became a royal asset underneath King Casimir III of Poland. Known as Casimir the Great, he acknowledged salt’s financial energy. Revenue from extraction accounted for as a lot as a 3rd of the royal treasury’s revenue throughout his reign — wealth that helped finance Poland’s first college. By the tip of the fifteenth century, Wieliczka was producing between 7,000 and eight,000 tons of salt yearly.
Life within the mine was demanding, although not as hazardous as another varieties of mining. “It wasn’t a bad job because of the good air, soft rock and short working day,” says Antoniak. “It wasn’t easy here, but it was easier than in other mines.”
Still, the work was grueling. Excavating a single chamber might take a long time, usually spanning generations of the identical household. Among probably the most harmful jobs belonged to the so-called “penitents,” who burned off extra methane within the chambers to forestall explosions.
Conditions have been harsher for the horses launched within the 1500s to energy pulleys lifting salt to the floor. Once underground, the animals by no means noticed daylight once more. A horse cart nonetheless stands in one of the chambers.
The mine took on a darker function throughout World War II. Under Nazi occupation, it was transformed right into a subterranean manufacturing facility producing plane elements. Forced laborers — prisoners from the close by Płaszów focus camp, together with many Hungarian Jews — labored there, forbidden from talking to common miners. The operation lasted only some months; humidity and salt proved unsuitable for metalworking.
Though mining has ceased, salt manufacturing continues. Water infiltration — harmful as a result of it dissolves salt and weakens the partitions — is pumped to the floor. The brine is evaporated, forsaking crystals in a course of much like sea salt manufacturing. More than 10,000 tons are produced yearly.
Tourism at Wieliczka dates from the early 18th century. Visitors as soon as attended firework shows within the chambers and took boat rides throughout an underground brine lake. Prominent company got here even earlier, together with the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who’s believed to have toured the mine in 1493.
“He was the first ‘tourist’ in the mine — the first person who came not to work but to see the miners cutting and transporting salt,” says Antoniak. A salt sculpture of Copernicus was put in in a chamber in 1973.
For many guests, the spotlight is St. Kinga’s Chapel — an unlimited underground church carved from a former mining chamber. It is devoted to Kinga, the Thirteenth-century Hungarian princess and patron saint of salt miners.
Legend holds that Kinga requested her father for a dowry of rock salt when she married a Polish duke. After he supplied her Hungary’s largest salt mine, she threw her engagement ring down a shaft there. The ring was later stated to have been present in Poland, embedded in a lump of salt found close to Krakow — presumably at Wieliczka.
Carved over 67 years by three miners — Józef Markowski, Tomasz Markowski and Antoni Wyrodek — the chapel was accomplished in 1964. Mass remains to be held there on Sundays and particular events, together with weddings. A sweeping staircase leads into the chamber, the place biblical scenes are carved into the partitions alongside a salt-rock altar and chandeliers created from salt crystals.
Today, Wieliczka isn’t just a museum but in addition an occasions venue. Two chambers have been fitted with wooden floors for galas and personal features. One, practically 120 toes excessive, has hosted a bungee bounce and even a tethered sizzling air balloon trip.
There’s additionally a spa, situated 450 toes under floor specializing in respiratory therapies — a subterranean model of trendy wellness “salt caves.”
“It’s healthy here, not like in a coal mine where it’s dusty and difficult to breathe,” says Antoniak. “Salt miners don’t suffer from black lung and they live longer than other miners. The air is almost free from bacteria.” Salt’s antiseptic properties and talent to soak up moisture assist restrict dangerous microorganisms.
“The air is saturated with minerals. It’s not polluted with dust, with pollen. It’s good for people with allergies, for example, to breathe here under the ground,” she says.
Though not an energetic mine, Wieliczka nonetheless employs tons of of miners. Maintaining the location is labor-intensive, Antoniak explains. The biggest risk is water, which may weaken the cavern construction.
“Many miners’ jobs is to collect the water and pump it to the surface.
They have to make sure it’s safe so we can let visitors in. So they make sure the wooden constructions are still supporting the ceiling.”
Today, greater than 380 miners work to guard the underground complicated from water injury and protect the excavations — custodians of a kingdom carved from salt.