The Bochnia Salt Mine in Bochnia,
Poland is one of the oldest salt mines in the world. Bochnia’s irrefutable
asset is its exclusive combination of severity, naturalness and
state-of-the-art multimedia expositions which never fail to captivate visitors.
This is also oldest min in Poland was actually established between the 12th and
13th centuries after salt was first discovered in Bochnia. This was starting
era of salt mining in this year, and became part of the Royal mining company
zupy krakowskie "Kraków salt works". In the World War I, the mine
activities were stopped and closed for some time. Bochnia Salt mine shafts
approximately 4.5km in length and about 330 to 470 meters in depth below the
surface at 16 different levels. More than 800 years of working, it now has a
character of an underground town where tourist can take a ride by the
underground train, slide down the world’s longest underground slide and take an
underground ferry ride crossing the brine lake flooding the chamber. In 1981 it
mine was declared a heritage monument, and excavated chambers, shafts and
passages form an underground town, which is now open to tourists. It is
situated in the middle salt deposits creating effective patterns, the so called
Bochnia stripes and where the “Wazynek” restaurant, a souvenir shop, a sports
field and a children's playground are located. During the tour, tourists have chance
to explore a network of chambers and galleries with exceptional shapes and
geological structure including a horse stable, wooden treadmill expositions and
the Saint Kinga’s Chapel.
Moreover, one of largest
preserved chambers has been converted into a sanatorium. The mine has a precise
microclimate, with a continuous temperature between 14–16 °C (57–61 °F), high
humidity (about 70%) and favorable ionization of the air saturated, at the same
time, by sodium chloride and valuable microelements, like: magnesium, manganese
and calcium. The massive mine tour ends up with a stay in the largest chamber,
the Wazyn, considered the heart of the mine. The biggest conserved chambers in
the Bochnia mine, placed on Sienkiewicz level. The Mysiur Stable was created
before 1771 by adapting a chamber exploited in the 18th century. It was
arranged for horses which worked at an adjacent treadmill over the Wazyn shaft.
In the chamber, the original wooden manger has been preserved. The site is one
of the Polish National Historic Monuments, as designated October and in 2013
the mine was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
