Salt! – On the Road with Don and Paula

**The Wieliczka Salt Mine.**
**Descending over a thousand feet and over a hundred miles in length, this wonder is just one of the attractions in the Krakow, Poland area.**

Stanislaw and Zbigniew were out hunting one day back in 1044. Stan was eying up a nice buck while Z-Big took his turn as the ‘Spotter’. Stan let his arrow fly, but due to the amount of slivovitz consumed the night before (and as a warmer-upper just a few hours prior), his arrow missed his mark and instead buried itself in a small hilly outcropping. Stan grunted to Z-Big to go and do his job as ‘spotter’ and find his arrow. Stan then promptly passed out. Z-Big dutifully found the arrow and when he went to pull it out of the hillside, he noticed that it was a rather wet area with a good amount of crusty white stuff around it. And just like good ol’ Jedd Clampett when he was hunting and missed his mark, and “out from the ground come a’ bubblin’ crude, oil that is…. Texas Tea…. Z-Big had discovered a rather lucrative find, not oil, but salt, which back then was probably way more valuable than a black, greasy liquid that needed several hundred more years to become even useful!

Z-Big let his friend sleep and went to the King (Casimir I) and was granted a ‘Privilege’ which he shared with the local monastery, they in turn, began collecting the brine from the area, drying it, and produced some of the first Sodium Chloride (table salt) from what would become one of the world’s oldest and most prolific salt mines….. the Wieliczka Salt Mine just outside of Krakow, Poland.

Well, that’s the story and I’m stickin’ to it!

Yesterday we spent the better part of the day at the Salt Mine which had become a central figure in the past commerce of the area to today when it is one of the top tourist attractions, amassing over 1.91 million visitors alone last year. Yesterday was a Wednesday in April and then place was packed! The Guides said the “You should see it in the High Season, July and August!” No Thank you! It was crowded enough yesterday! But it is well worth the visit!

Just part of the descent, the main shaft going down has 40 levels and about 400 plus steps and then an additional 800+ steps down after that! No worries, you get to take a lift when your ‘tour’ is over!

This place is about as cool (Fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit all year-round) as it gets! And it is massive! We spent almost two and a half hours down there walking in the endless tunnels and chambers, learning about how they mined this stuff from the old days to the recent past. They really didn’t start digging down until the 1300’s and the process ceased in the late 1990’s because of mine flooding and the price of salt on the market. But not until the mine reached a depth of 1076’ and a total tunnel length of 178 miles!

**Who would think that underneath this unassuming building (and the surrounding little towns) lies a gigantic, ancient salt deposit!**

**This is how the salt is mined. It is carved out in these slug-like barrel shapes and then transported to the surface. It is NOT white until it is refined.**

**Lots and Lots of wood was/is used to shore up the walls and tunnels in the mine. Here you can see some salt that has found its way out and crystallized.**

**The miners and some artists, over the years have made figures by carving out the salt. Here we see some Dwarves**
**(I think there are Seven, with some other characters mixed in.)**

Here is a rendition of one of the stories attached to the mines of the King’s daughter who threw her engagement ring down one of the pits and then had the folks dig way down until they found a rock and when it was split open the ring was inside.
**I’m sure that there’s more to this story, as it stands it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but they did live happily ever after!**

**This scene shows how horses were used way down inside to help turn machinery to pull and hoist those salt barrels up and out of the mine.**

**This is a more recent carving that symbolizes the heroics of the men who needed to venture into a new chamber first to try and light any methane gas that had accumulated in it.**
**No thanks!**

Yes, this is almost a thousand feet down!
It is a church and it is used every Sunday for mass, and it also holds concerts and weddings! The Stations of the Cross and other various depictions are carved in relief on its walls.

**This is another little chapel. The miners would carve out a new one when the older one would get too far to visit. There are several chapels on several levels all together.**

**Easy to recognize, Pope John Paul II was from Poland and some of his relics are down here. This staue is on the other side of that large room, across from the altar.**

Another feather in its salty cap is that it was one of the first twelve sites from around the world that began the UNESCO World Heritage collection back in 1978. That original list includes such places as Yellowstone National Park and the Galapagos Islands! Now if that’s not a recommendation for a visit I don’t know what is!

Our afternoon concluded with a search for the otherwise ubiquitous Pretzel! Try as we might, finding a place that sells these masterpieces proved harder than it should have. Search we did, walked we did, and finally ate we did, some ‘traditional style’ (but stuffed!) pretzels! Ours was one stuffed with Mozzarella and then sprinkled with sesame seeds. Just enough to hold us over until a nice dinner was had a ‘locals only’ restaurant.

Another recommendation for you to visit Poland…. the food!