Off to the Salt mines....

The bus is due at 8.15 so an early breakfast is required.Great breakfasts here,lunch and dinner is included in the food options provided.Meat cheeses,cereal,fruit,cake is on the menu along with scrambled eggs and smoked sausages.There are salads and cakes on offer too.Very difficult to say no!

We left Krackow about nine o'clock (am) after picking up some other traveller's from hotels and headed to the salt mines at Wieliczka, a place about half an hour away by bus.

They are a revelation.I was amazed at the scale of the chambers and the length of the corridors.We were 190 meters underground and that was not the full depth of the system. The lowest floor is closed because of water damage from flooding.Many accidents have happened here as a result of methane gas build up similar to Pike River.
Our guide Kate explained that these were not places of punishment as only freemen could get a job here so it was quite sought after.No slaves or children ever worked in the mines.
We were to be walking for two to two and a half hours ,most taxing for some on the group were the hundreds of steps to walk down initially  to get into the mine. Thankfully we were able to take a lift back to the top.
Miners are depicted cutting out the huge blocks of road salt from
underground and hoisting via a pulley system into position.Today the salt is extracted for their own purposes in the tourist trade.
Horses were used in earlier times to help transport the salt and they lived underground for years.The cavern roofs are supported by huge wooden braces and beams to prevent miners being killed.

A full scale chapel is a spectacle to be seen with chandeliers made of wood and salt crystals, carvings and an altar. The carvings here are amazing and three men spent a lifetime carving the main chapel, two were brothers.
Several other chapels were in the complex plus conference rooms and other chapels.Miners are religious people and because of the nature of their work and early deaths they were deemed to need a chapel so they could make amends before their death in a mishap or grieve for their mates who met their maker in an untimely manner.

Services are held here on Sunday, also weddings and corporate events.Down deep are toilets,shops and food outlets for those who are tempted to snack along the way.
It really was fascinating, folk lore played a role as well with dwarves and gnomes shown waiting to help the miners after dark.Shades of a fairy tale although Kate said women were never in the mines so Snow White would still be sleeping.
Pope John Paul even is honored here as he visited the mines as part of his tenure as Bishop of Krackow. He is revered in Poland and he has lots of places named for him.
Other famous sons of Poland were commemorated in salt carvings at various points along the way as well as religious statues of our lady and a bishop or two.
We could only take pictures if you paid ten zloty so that curtailed our snapping!!!

There were dioramas and displays of life in the mines set into recesses to be seen as you walked along the corridors which showed a tough life for miners and horses from centuries past.
Apparently the air is pure and that was better than the fate if coal miners who became blind from the toxins in the air underground but it was still tough dirty work.Eight hours below ground in shifts year in year out must have been grim.The air is supposed to help breathing problems so there is a medical clinic here for treatment options so all tastes catered for.
The floor is well worn but not slippery today and ceilings and walls all show marks of axes chipping away at the salt.
We were told to wear warm clothes as the temperature was about fourteen  degrees underground yet the water in the underground lake is about four degrees.You cannot sink though, the salt makes you buoyant so drowning is avoided.
We walked around for two and a half hours underground,quite difficult for some less mobile travellers who were feeling it a bit by the time we surfaced and returned to the bus with their bags of salt souvenirs.
I have to say I was surprised how interesting the whole experience was.Well worth the money.