Salt Mines

If we ever see sunshine in Hallstatt, Austria, we’ll ride to the 300 year old salt mine on the mountain, at the top of a funicular railway. We just can’t see going up, when we won’t be able to enjoy the surrounding scenery. Beautiful Lake Hallstatt is surrounded by mountains. Whoops, on our last visit we saw the sun, but we didn’t take the ride. Next time.

The Salzbergwerk near Berchtesgaden, Germany, has been active since the early 1500s, and produces 120,000 tons of salt annually. Miner’s clothes are required for those who tour the mine on the small train, and at one place the tour-group boards a raft to cross an underground lake.

In Aigues-Mortes, France, we drove around the area, seeing both flocks of flamingos, and the nearby salt flats. The salt business has been an occupation in this town since the 800s.

Just south of Fulda, Germany there is a huge pile of sand or gravel, waste from an underground salt mine, we were told. We could see it for miles, really large — like a small mountain.

We drove to Wieliczka, Poland (just east of Kraków) to visit the old salt mine. We have been tempted, but resisted, a salt mine visit in other countries, but we were assured this is the most spectacular. The 700 years that the Wieliczka Salt Mine has been worked, resulted in over 200 miles of passages on nine levels, as well as more than 2,100 caverns of varied size.

Many caverns/galleries in the mine at Wieliczka contain works of art, often altars and statues sculpted by miners/artists. We visited several levels by stairs or , and saw many works of art, carved entirely out of salt. Most spectacular was the Blessed Kinga Chapel, carved in one of the largest galleries. There were beautiful three dimensional “salt” statues, such as the “Last Supper.” The floor looked like a carefully laid tile design, but further examination shows it's salt carved to look like individual tiles. The huge chandeliers in this Cathedral are made of salt, each consisting of many dangling salt crystals.

Our guide had worked in the Wieliczka mine for 20 years, lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for several years, and recently returned to work as a guide.

This is one place where the word UNIQUE really applies — incomparable, peerless, unequaled, unmatched, unrivaled.