WIELICZKA
Place of our Gala Dinner
Active mining was discontinued in 1996 due to low salt
prices and mine flooding. The mine remains a major tourist attraction.
The mine reaches a depth of 327 meters, and is over 300 km long.
The Wieliczka salt mine features a 3.5-km. tour for visitors (less than 1% of
the length of the mine's passages) that includes statues of historic and mythic
figures. The older works were sculpted by miners out of rock salt; more recent
figures have been fashioned by contemporary artists. Even the crystals of the
chandeliers are made from rock salt that has been dissolved and reconstituted to
achieve a clear, glass-like appearance. The rock salt is naturally grey, in
various shades like granite, so that the carvings resemble carved unpolished
granite rather than having the white or crystalline appearance that many
visitors expect. (The carvings appear white in the photos below; the actual
carved figures are not white.)
Also featured is a large chamber with walls carved to resemble wooden chapels
built by miners in earlier centuries; an underground lake; and exhibits on the
history of salt mining. The mine is often referred to as "the Underground Salt
Cathedral of Poland."
About 1.2 million people visit the mine each year.
Over the centuries, visitors to this site have included Nicolaus Copernicus,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, Dmitri Mendeleyev, Bolesław
Prus, Ignacy Paderewski, Robert Baden-Powell, Jacob Bronowski (who filmed
segments of The Ascent of Man in the mine), Karol Wojtyła (who later became Pope
John Paul II), former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and many others.
During World War II, the salt mine was used by the occupying Germans as
facilities for war-related production plants.
To get down to the 150-meter level of the mine, visitors must walk down a wooden
stairway of some 400 steps. After the 3 kilometer tour of the mine's corridors,
its chapels, statues and lake, visitors take an elevator back up to the surface.
The elevator holds 36 people (9 per car) and takes roughly 30 seconds to reach
the surface.
The salt mine helped inspire the Labyrinth scenes in Bolesław Prus' 1895
historical novel, Pharaoh.
In 1978 the Wieliczka salt mine was placed on the original
UNESCO roster of World Heritage Sites.