Poland’s Magnificent Wieliczka Salt Mine Is More Like a Fairy Tale Castle Which Will Blow Your Mind

9 Two diverging routes off the upper gallery feature two different attractions

Just off the upper gallery at St. Kinga’s Chapel, visitors can choose between two routes: the miners’ route, which gives a technical history of mining, and the more scenic tourists’ route. There are more than 800 steps on the tourist route.

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10 Tourists walk on walkways in the Wieliczka Salt Mine

The path goes down through four different “stories” that are about 450 feet deep. The tour goes for just over two miles through tunnels, stairs, and caverns. At about 62 degrees, it can be a little chilly in the mine. Poland’s Wieliczka Salt Mine even features a narrow wooden staircase. Once you get to the bottom, you don’t have to go back up all those stairs. You can take an elevator. But in the 1800s, miners did not have the luxury of a staircase. This old engraving shows the “devil’s drop,” a rope that brought miners down to the pit face.

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11 The serene underground salt lakes

The underground salt lakes are one of the most amazing things you’ll see on your trip down the mine. People often propose to their partners in these romantic spots. One of the lakes is called Lake Wessel. The mine is close to underground salt water, which needs to be managed all the time. In 1993, the mine’s lowest levels, well below Lake Wessel, flooded completely. An engraving from the 1800s shows that people would even go to the lakes as tourists back then.

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12 The mine was flooded twice

Another flooding occurred on April 13, 1993. The AP claimed that the water came in all at once at the lowest rate of 100 gallons per minute. The agency said the flooding went on for about eight months, filling the lowest levels all the way down 1,079 feet. As the floods were not high enough to hurt tourists, no one was hurt at the time. The water is under control now, but the disaster led to the decision to stop using that area for commercial salt mining.

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