Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Wieliczka Satlt Mine

This morning I took my parents to the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Wieliczka, Poland.  Wieliczka is an adorable town about 20 minutes outside Krakow.  The Salt Mine is a must-see if you travel to Krakow.  I know the term "salt mine" isn't the first thing you think of visiting when you plan a trip to Europe, but Wieliczka is amazing.  The mine is about 900 years old, and after a 2 hour tour we had only seen 1% of the mine.  But the size of the mine isn't what draws people to see this place...it's what the miners did inside the mine once their shift was over.  Before I show you pictures from inside, here's a couple shots of me and my folks as we were waiting to go in....

My mother-in-law always tells me I need to get in more of the pictures, so I made sure my mom took one with me in it!

The pictures do not do this place justice, but here's a picture of a chapel that was entirely carved out of salt. Even the chandeliers are carved out of rock salt!  The mine is filled with sculptures the miners created after their work shifts were done.  They did it willingly, because they wanted to make the mine a more beautiful place.  They weren't professional artists, which makes this place even more amazing.

I think I'm going to tell Luke to get busy carving one of these for our dining room back home....

My parents standing in front of the sculpture of "The Last Supper."  This sculpture is only 17 cm deep, but the detail is amazing.

The area surrounding the mine was so pretty I made my parents stop another picture.  

Another fun outing...tonight we're all ready to stay home and relax.  I think tomorrow we're going to see Auschwitz.  I'm looking forward to that even though it's not going to be a happy place to visit.

Now I'm off to relax with the family!

1 comment:

Matt said...

yeah, Poland :) greetings from Wroclaw!