We drove out of the Krakow campsite at 9am to make sure we got to Wieliczka salt mine for our 11am tour. After a couple of traffic jams we arrived there and had time for a coffee from the slowest barista I have ever seen. At least the coffee was good. 

It was soon time for us to go in. 

Our guide was Sylvester who was excellent with a bit of a sense of humour. 

Initially we went down 40 sets of 8 steps. It seemed interminable but we got there. We had seen wood paneling so far but soon we started going through what looked like rock – but was actually salt. It is mostly a grey colour as the salt had other minerals through it. However if you put a light directly on it you can see through it. We were only 60 metres underground.

At the end we would be 135 metres underground. But we were relieved to hear there would be a lift to get us back to the surface at the end. 

The mines had been started 6,000 years ago . The Roman’s were here.

It was easy to set off explosions with a spark so it was very hard with oil lamps to stop this.

Water was also bad as it would dissolve the rock. So there was 30 tonnes of water removed from the air in the mine.

There were many interesting carvings as we progressed through the mines.

There were many detailed carvings from the salt. Gnomes were the miners lucky mascot so they created a little of these.

The miners had to be lowered down the shaft every day. This would have been a torture to get all the way down then back up. 

The horses were lowered down but it was too terrifying for them to go up every day so they stayed in the mine for the rest of their life. 

There are pools at the bottom of the mine.
The Victorians had a boat trip to the other side.

We got to a huge chamber with chandeliers which was a church.

It had scenes from the life of Christ carved in the walls.

Pope John Paul was at the way out.

We got to the end of the tour and were able to peruse the gift shop. There was a display of crystals.

The salt mines were one of the first 12 world heritage listed sites in the world.

This was the underground restaurant. There is also an underground hotel that is good for certain lung conditions.

The 4 level lift took us back to the surface. Each section could take 9 people and it was cramped!

After we got to the surface abd back to the vans we left to go to the campsite. We found it along some very small countryside roads. It basically a farm.We had lunch in the sun.

The alpacas came to visit.

It got stormy and had to retreat inside. 

I caught up with my blog and Lisa caught up with her journal. 

It started steadily raining so we had to stay inside. 

I then made dinner of chilli lime fish (from recipetin eats)with broccoli and sweet potato. It was a good sauce to jazz up a bland white fish. We had a nice German Sauvignon Blanc with it ruining Sean’s plan to have an alcohol free dinner. 

I had a late night catching up on my blog. It’s been so busy it’s very hard to keep up!