With every step, we descended deeper underground, not quite sure of what we’d find at the end of this very long wooden staircase. After a long, overnight journey by coach from Budapest, we’d finally arrived in Krakow, and this was our first stop after depositing our luggage. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much until we were about 64m underground, less than halfway into the depths of the mine – then I understood why it’s considered one of the must-visits when in Poland.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine opened in the 13th century and continued operating and producing salt right up till 2007. Since then, the UNESCO World Heritage registered site has become one of the main tourist attractions in Poland, drawing millions of tourists yearly.

There are two main options to choose from – the Tourist Route which we took, and the more physically intensive, “hands-on” Miners’ Route, where adventurous souls looking for greater immersion can experience a day in the life of a miner. That’s not to say that the Tourist Route was a piece of cake – with a total of 800 steps and long stretches through the winding mine, it took about two hours of walking to complete. Not as easy as it sounds. Thankfully, at a cool 14 degrees Celsius inside the mine, it’s not a sweaty walk.

All visitors must enter in groups accompanied by a tour guide, and that’s included in the standard ticket price of 89 zloty (about 21 euros per person). The English tours are pretty frequent (every half an hour), so we didn’t have to wait too long after queueing to get our tickets to descend.

Deep underground, everything you see is made of salt – even the walls and the ground you walk on. We were told that we could test it if we wanted to, by licking the walls. I briefly considered it, then I realized that millions of tourists and miners have probably already rubbed their hands and tongues all over the walls, so… ehh, maybe not.

The salt is also not white as one would expect, but rather sort of dull and grayish because it’s unrefined. Apparently, just breathing in the salty air is beneficial for your health and can help to alleviate some respiratory problems.

Further down, we came across hand-carved salt statues by the miners, including one of Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish mathematician and astronomer who proposed the revolutionary heliocentric theory of the solar system. He’s said to have walked through the mine in the 16th century.

And that’s just the first taste of what the Wieliczka Salt Mine has to offer.

Behold!

At 101 meters underground lies the highlight of the Salt Mine – the Chapel of St Kinga. It was built for the miners as a place for them to rest and pray even though they were deep in the belly of the earth, working under harsh conditions.

Our tour guide told us that the entire chapel was carved out of salt by just a handful of miners, which made seeing the fruits of their labor even more incredible. The chandeliers of salt crystals illuminated the entire chapel, washing everyone in a bright light. Without the buzz of tourists that echoed through the chamber, I imagine it would have been a peaceful respite from the back-breaking mining that would have awaited the miners outside.

Walking down another long set of illuminated stairs, we found ourselves standing beside an underground lake. Cool stuff.

And with that, we’d come to the end of our journey to the center of the earth.

There’s a restaurant at the end of the tour inside the mine, along with a salt museum, but by then we were a little too saturated with all that salty content so we headed into the lift (thank God) which took us all the way up the 135 meters to the surface.

Overall, I found it to be quite a memorable and value-for-money experience that’s worth a visit when in Krakow. The photos don’t do the place much justice, and the entire experience of descending slowly into the depths of the earth and walking through the salt mine is a pretty unique one. However, I’d leave it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I don’t think I’d return for a second visit.