The most important tourist attraction near Krakow is Auschwitz. Ton and I discussed whether to visit the camp prior to coming to Krakow. Initially we had decided to pass on it as we were not that keen on seeing a monument to mans cruelty. But when we extended our time here we decided we should go. All tours to Auschwitz must be guided, and unfortunately there is not one tour in English available this week. We suspect that all of the tour operations in Krakow buy up the English spots in advance, so the only way you can go is by joining one of their tours from Krakow. So despite our new intentions we are going to miss Auschwitz.
The other important historical attraction near Krakow is the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Salt has been produced in the area since paleolithic times. The springs around Wieliczka have always been salty, and salt was produced by diverting ground water into pits, letting the water evaporate, and harvesting the salt that remained.
In the 1300’s a Hungarian princess named Princess Kinga was promised in marriage to a local Polish prince. When she was asked what she wanted for her wedding present she asked for the salt mining rights around Wieliczka. She hired 13 miners, and told them to start digging and one of the largest salt deposits in Europe was discovered.
The mine was in continuous operation from the 1300’s until 1996. At that time there was severe flooding in the working mine, and the cost to rebuild was not justified by the going rate for salt.
The mine is immense. The mine goes down 1073 feet and has over 187 miles of vertical and horizontal passages.
The mines have been a tourist attraction for centuries. Noted dignitaries have been brought to see the mine back to the 1700’s. It has been run as a commercial tourism site back to the late 1800’s. One of the stories on the tour talked about a canal boat tour that took place in one of the brine tunnels in the early 1900’s. It was canceled after one of the boats full of German soldiers in WWI capsized with many of the “tourists” drowning.
Waliczka was one of the sites on the very first list of UNESCO world heritage sites in 1978. The list of UNESCO sites has grown quite a bit since then, so they are proud to be among the first.
The tour is really extensive, taking over 3 hours, including an optional museum tour (we somehow ended up in a Polish museum tour, but enjoyed ourselves none the less) . We went over 400 feet under ground climbing down over 800 stairs, and walking 1.5 miles. Fortunately, you get to take an elevator up at the end.
In the late 1800’s 2 miners and a local artist asked to convert one of the large rooms into a Catholic Church. They worked on this project on their own time without compensation for 20 years. The church is very impressive with a life of Jesus carved in salt around the exterior walls of the church.
There is also a huge hall that can be rented for weddings or corporate events. These days tourism is what is keeping the mine alive and they are very creative about embracing tourists.
While the experience was very structured, we enjoyed how they presented the history of the mine. They did a good job of mixing descriptions of very practical things, like how do you get the salt to the surface, and how that changed over the centuries. They also focused on the importance of the mine in the history of Poland, and used it to tell the story of Poland nationalism. Almost all of the national heroes of Poland are given a mention during the tour even if they only visited it once.
Wieliczka is another beautiful world heritage site worth visiting.
