Wieliczka

Generally the expression "back to the salt mines" is used in situations where the fun's over, and it's time to get back to the drudgery of the daily grind. Poland has figured out not only how to make people want to go visit the salt mines, but also how to make them a major tourist attraction.

Wieliczka is one of the most important towns in Poland that you've never heard of. It's located in the exurbs of Krakow, and at one point the salt that came out of the mine accounted for a full third of the taxes paid into the Royal treasury. There is evidence that neolithic humans obtained salt from the site, and the mine itself was active between the 13th century and 2007.  We often forget that salt was an extremely expensive commodity at one time, and one that was very important for the preservation of food as well as a way of covering up food that had already spoiled. Miners at Wieliczka were not only paid in money but also in salt: a literal handful of it, with both hands cupped to receive it. Our guide said that this among other things actually made the miners relatively well-off at the time, though it was commonly advised that a woman look to marry a miner who had large hands.

Miners are still active lower in the mine, as most of the town is undermined, a million tourists visit each year and therefore a cave-in would be disastrous for any number of reasons. There is a walking tour with an optional trip to a museum slightly deeper in the mine, as well as a separate "miner's trail" for the more adventurous.

I took the Polish language tour because 1) it was cheaper, 2) I wanted to practice my Polish and 3) I've noticed that in Poland if you can manage to understand the local language, tours given in it tend to be better. Now, I've had some excellent English-language tours in Poland, but from time to time I will overhear a Polish guide leading a Polish tour next to ours, and he will mention things that the English guide did not that are particularly interesting.  I didn't take any photos because it costs an extra 10 złoty to do so. Maybe next time I go down there, I might bite the bullet as it is probably worth a photo album.

This tour took about 3 hours altogether, which made it both long and not long enough. I would have liked to have spent a little bit more time in the museum, as I felt a little bit rushed when looking at some of the old documents down there. I suspect that this was kind of the point. We also had a number of kids on the tour of the museum who were probably just fine with the amount of time we spent there. And who can blame them? When you're 5 and 1980 seems like ancient history, why should you be impressed with some document Władysław VI Niestety signed back in 12-something? 

The centerpiece of the tour is a series of statues and carvings made entirely out of salt. There's one of Goethe, one of Piłsudski, one of General Haller, and a number of religious figures. Why nobody has carved a statue of Lot's Wife yet is beyond me, though it is possible they are afraid the sculptor will misunderstand and carve a sculpture of a LOT Polish Airlines 787 instead.

The photo that everybody always takes of Wieliczka is the chapel of St. Kinga, in which everything from the altar to the artwork to the stations of the cross to even the decorative elements on the chandeliers are made of salt. There's a statue of John Paul II at the back of the chapel, as well as a rendering of DaVinci's The Last Supper carved into one of the walls. Though the carving is only about 60cm deep, the perspective is so good that it looks much deeper. The chapel is in active religious use, and I think it's even possible to get married down there. 

What was noticeable was how religious a place the mine was. Many of the larger chambers have chapels in them. The traditional goodbye of the miners was (and through the tour-guides, remains) "szczęść Boga" or "may God grant you luck" or more idiomatically, "go with God." There's just 

something about having 60+ meters of earth over your head supported by wood pilings and salt, as

well as the periodic leakage of methane with attendant explosions that tends to make people religious, 

I guess.

Speaking of methane, one chamber bears the marks of a fire, the "Komora Spalone" or "The Burned

Chamber." The mine rather hilariously translates this instead as "The Spalone Chamber", as if there 

was some guy from Italy named Spalone who had a chamber named after him for some reason. The 

other bit of Anguished English I remember was a placard in the chapels that urged people to be

respectable in a place of worship. It does convey what they wanted it to convey, but what flashed 

through my head was ex-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley famously saying "so what do you want 

me to do? Take off my pants?" at a press conference.

 

The tour was a chance to learn some interesting things that you don't usually think about when it comes to salt mining. Different methods of mining leave different markings behind on the walls from which they are mined, and one chamber of the museum actually has a very clear illustration of this as three walls facing each other were each mined using different methods. The walls are all painted white, as miners didn't have the kind of illumination they are accustomed to nowadays (which even still doesn't mean it's terrific). Also, wood was and largely still is the primary building material down there. Steel rusts, particularly when it is exposed to lots and lots of salt. On the other hand, wood is preserved by salt because the microorganisms of corruption can't survive. There was a painting we saw that had been painted sometime in the 1650's, and has never seen the light of day. It has been restored exactly once. There were documents down there from the 14th century that are not only legible, but aside from the archaic handwriting don't really look that old. They certainly look better than, say, the Declaration of Independence. Some of the pilings and joists holding the ceiling over our heads in place were several hundred years old. Indeed, what was remarkable about the mine was how very clean it smelled. There was absolutely no musty smell of old wood, no smell of smog, no real smells at all until we walked by a modern locomotive that had the usual smell of well-oiled machinery.                                             

The biggest enemy to preservation of the mine is the fact that people have to breathe. Over time the water vapor exhaled by tourists damages the carvings and sculptures, and so a complex de-humidification system has been installed to maintain a constant atmosphere. There are also some caverns that are off-limits to tourists, and we were in one chapel that was in very bad shape. Our guide says that they only let people in there in the winter season, when there are fewer tourists.

Overall it was a very impressive sight to see, a kind of miniature underground city complete with mock-ups of the horse stables that were once down there and even some detritus of mining that has now been completely covered in salt. I would highly urge any visitor to Krakow to visit the mine!