Four days in Krakow: Wieliczka Salt Mine

When I was in my final year of high school, me and a few of my friends managed to bargain our way into joining the Easter History trip to Poland. The History trips were always best.

Partly because we were only there for four days and partly because it was organised by teachers, every day had an extremely tight schedule. So after stopping by our incredibly amazing, yet exceptionally cheap hotel, we set off to Wieliczka (pronounced Veeyah-LEECH-ka) Salt Mine.

To get on the level of the mine you have to go down 378 wooden steps, they are set in a square so it gets a little dizzy and you can see down the hole in the middle, so also a little bit sickening. Visitors only get to see a tiny proportion of the mine so the actual depth is much, much deeper.

The Wieliczka mine is often referred to as "the Underground Salt Cathedral of Poland” as it has hundreds of sculptures, ornate chambers and even chapels, mainly carved by just the ordinary miners, after their shifts.

The mine was built in the 13th century and produced table salt as one of the world's oldest operational salt mines until 2007.

It has underground salt lakes which look extremely eery until someone takes a photo with their flash on and it lights up bright green. Part of me kinda wanted to jump in and float about for a while. An evil part of me wanted to jump in and wait for unsuspecting tourists to pass, then freak them out by pretending to be a mutant fish person.

You can even lick the walls. It was actually encouraged by our tour guide, there is a personal limit though, so watch it.  I did it, unsurprisingly it tasted like salt. And now that I think about it, probably also tiny specks of other peoples saliva in my mouth. YUM.

The mines are super good value, and even though you have to pay an extra fee to photograph/ video record, it's only about £2 so nothing to get upset about. There are also discounts available so check them before going.

Daniłowicza Street 10
32-020
Kraków
Poland
www.wieliczka-saltmine.com