Wieliczka Salt Mine, Southern Poland, Poland

5Blackth0rn 5:00 PM Nov 21, 2022

Very impressive
One of the must visit destinations when in Krakow, although a few miles outside of town, it’s easy to get to via the train being only a couple of minutes’ walk from the station. It’s probably best to pre-book online before you get there, you can walk up and just buy tickets on the door, but there were long queues and it looks as though people were waiting quite some time. You start off with a short introduction at ground level before being warned you’re going to be going down 65m initially. That doesn’t sound too bad, but each flight of stairs were just 1m before doubling back on themselves, so you couldn’t see how far you had to go, or how far you had come, and they seemed to go on for ever. From then on it was in to the rest of the mine, and this was really quite spectacular. Quite enormous caverns that had been carved out of the salt, and miles and miles of tunnels although obviously you only see a tiny fraction of what’s there. For example, there are 26 chapels down there, I think you see about 4 of them. Our guide was very helpful and informative, and spoke excellent English. It’s a long tour, something like 2½ hours, although you do get a break about half way through where you can use the loo, but some refreshments or visit the inevitable gift shop. The largest cavers are quite amazing with elaborate carvings and even chandeliers made out of salt crystals. At the end of the tour is another bar/restaurant as well as another gift shop as well as an optional museum. And then once you think you’ve finished the tour there is a very long walk to the exit. Fortunately, there is a lift back up at the end! Overall, very good and well worth a visit.

4sarah s 5:00 PM Sep 19, 2020

Lost in Wieliczka
Good day out but the tour was abit rushed, especially the museum tour where we queued for ages not knowing why then found out from some other visitors it was because the museum also has a guided tour. The staff were all sat there looking on their mobile phones. The lady on the museum tour had a strong polish accent so could only grasp some words and I got the impression she did not want to be there. The guide on the first part of the tour was quite amusing though. The food/drink prices were reasonable (much cheaper than Austwitz museum!) Didnt learn alot about salt mining as it was more of a tourist attraction hearding people through corridors but there were some pretty looking rooms with statues. At the end of the museum tour we were exited out of a back door and abandoned - we had no idea where we were and our mobile phone data was not working for some reason when we came out. So we wandered the streets for about 45 minutes until we saw a sign for salt mine, by the time we found our way back to the entrance the gate was shut and locked up. The bus stops made no sense there was no mention of krakow on them, but after a while a bus that said Krakow rocked up so we jumped on it and it was under 4 Zlotty - bargain! I would recommend getting the bus or using uber rather than the organised tours. We got the uber out and it was with us in 1 minute and cost €30 zlotty. Just make sure you dont let the tour guide abandon you and follow them back to the entrance - then the bus stop is just across the road.