For more than seven hundred years, miners dug salt out of the ground at Wieliczka, and when they stopped selling it in 2007 they were still at it. The deposit is a gift of an ancient sea, a salt layer laid down some thirteen million years ago in the Miocene, and when the Polish kings came upon it, in the Middle Ages, salt was as good as money. At one stage the mine provided a large share of the royal revenue, and Kraków became rich on the proceeds. The mine now reaches over three hundred metres deep, with hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, and was one of the first twelve sites ever put on the UNESCO World Heritage list, in 1978.
The visitors' route, around three kilometres long, goes down hundreds of wooden steps and through galleries lined with timber props, with statues, chambers and an underground lake, all carved out of salt. The famous highlight is the chapel of St Kinga, a full-sized underground church about a hundred metres below the surface, whose chandeliers, altars, reliefs and floor are all carved out of salt by miners over decades. According to the legend, Kinga, a Hungarian princess who married a Polish prince, threw her engagement ring into a salt mine in Hungary, and it was found in the first block of salt dug at Wieliczka. Many visitors lick the walls, to check, and the guides smile.
The town of Wieliczka, with about eighteen thousand people, sits just southeast of Kraków, and fuel, food and parking are easy. The ride from Kraków is only a quarter of an hour, but the city deserves a day of its own, with Wawel castle, the old market square and Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter. South of the mine, the country rises into the foothills of the Beskids, where roads wind through villages and forests with old wooden churches, and good riding begins within an hour.
Be prepared for crowds in summer and book tickets ahead. The mine stays at a steady temperature of around fourteen degrees, so a jumper is wise, even in July.
Try a bowl of zurek, the sour rye soup, and a plate of pierogi, ideally after a morning underground.