The Wieliczka Salt Mine is a must see for all lovers of underground salt sculpture. And a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The grandest part of your 2-3 hour subterranean tour is visiting the “Underground Salt Cathedral of Poland“, a giant hall carved entirely from…salt. Three ordinary miners spent 67 years carving an entire church, a life-size John Paul II, a nativity scene with pink-salt baby Jesus, and the fabulous Last Supper of Salt seen here. (In person, you get great depth perception, despite the carving being only 17cm deep). Even the chandeliers are made of pure salt crystals.
(Check out Sharon’s favorite salt sculpture shot: multicolored gnomes toiling away under the benevolent gaze of a manager gnome.)
In medieval times, salt was big business. A 700kg block of salt was enough to buy an entire village, including the people. The salt mine provided one third of the entire income of the Polish kingdom at the time of Casimir the Great, which he used to build Wawel castle, Jagiellonian University, and many other pillars of Polish nationhood that would survive Poland’s many disappearances from the map of Europe throughout history.
