Sep 10 2008
The Wieliczka Salt Mine in Krakow
Things to do on a free afternoon in… Kraków, Poland.
Kraków [KRA-koof; Cracow] has such a beautiful city center with so much to explore that it is difficult to imagine having a free afternoon, but take my advice: no matter how short your trip, make sure you take one afternoon away from the castle, the restaurants, the old Jewish quarter and the churches to go out to the Wieliczka Salt Mine [vyeh-LEECH-ka]. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the mine is so much more than you could imagine from the name ’salt mine’. There are whole rooms with intricate decoration carved into the salt of the mine, which was fully functional until 1996, and now stands open for tourists all year round. Like many such sites that were never designed for wheelchairs, it is not fully accessible, but they have done a good job of adapting it, creating a tour for wheelchair users that takes in much of the beauty of the mine.
