Today we took another guided tour. The tour included pick up from our apartment, a tour guide at the mine and the return home. The tours are so inexpensive that doing this any other way makes little sense. I have been using Trip Advisor for years and this is one of the best methods to book tours. Trip Advisor allows tours to be booked through many different tour companies on the Trip Advisor website or app. Tour companies can communicate through the app or use WhatsApp. Payment is made to TripAdvisor. I have found communication before the tour to be very easy. Meeting places and times are set the day before.
We live above a salt mine in the Detroit area but they no longer have tours. There is also a very large mine under Lake Erie. Who knew? I imagine seeing the workings of one salt mine to be similar enough to any other.
The Wieliczka Salt mine has produced salt since the 13 century until 1996 when it closed because of falling salt prices and mine flooding. The site is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Very well maintained and quite fascinating. There are 178 miles of passage ways. The visitors route is 2.2 miles and we did about 1 mile. About 1% of the total.
Our pickup from the apartment was 10 am and our driver was right on time. We picked up another couple along the way. Paul and Robin were visiting from Australia. We had a lot of great political discussions at lunch. One thing people across the globe share is dis-satisfaction with their government.
We were in the shaft for about 2 hours. The entrance was a set of stairs design into the shaft. I lost count of the number of flights but there were many. I looked down between the stairs and couldn’t see the bottom. My knees didn’t appreciate the strain but I knew from looking at all the people going down that we would not be walking back up. Few would make it. There must be an elevator at the end.
The pictures are self explanatory. You will see horses that lived in the mind and they were used right up to the mine closure in 1996. It was comfortable in the mine. The temperature was consistent and the air easy to breathe. Guides expected about 2,000 visitors today.
The end of the tour finished at a restaurant at the bottom of the shaft and a gift shop. The elevator took us back to the top. Small and rickety, it took us back up in little time.
After the tour we returned to our room and relaxed for the remainder of the day. Still lots to see around Krakow but this finishes our tours booked before arrival.