Krakow: Salt Mine

We left for Poland on Friday morning and took a quick stop in Ostrava, an industrial city in the Czech Republic. We toured the Steel Plant and got an inside look at how they made the steel. It was a cool tour, but not the best. Our tour guide was awesome though! She made the plant a little more interesting. It was a short tour and then we all got our lunches and we headed out for the Salt Mines in Krakow. It started raining right when we got there, like down-pouring. Thunder, lightning, the whole shebang. We waited it out a little then we entered the area to get tickets for the Salt Mines. We had a little while to wait before our tour, so we walked by all of the souvenir stands and I grabbed a coffee. Then we were able to enter for our tour. We had to walk down an outstanding amount of stairs to get to the entrance of the first mine. I'm talking insane amount. We made it to the first level, which was like 200 feet under ground, kind of scary to think about. We began our tour and the salt mines were actually super cool. Not at all what I expected. As we were touring she mentioned that at any point we could literally lick the walls to taste the salt. So I did. And it was salty. Very, very salty. But we kept going deeper and deeper into the mine, I think we went up to 400 feet deep. However, the best part were that there were chapels in the mine! There was a beautiful one with chandeliers and an alter and sculptures carved into the salt walls. Apparently, people actually get married down there and have galas down there. After seeing it, I am not surprised. It was breathtaking. Then we kept walking through and had an option to go to the museum or leave and everyone was hungry and tired so we decided to head out. Thank goodness there was a lift for us to get out of the mine. We didn't have to climb 800 stairs like the salt mine workers did.

                                                         Entrance to the Salt Mine

It's blurry, but I snuck a picture of the chapel/gala room in the Salt Mine!