Saturday, August 23, 2025

Wieliczka Salt Mine & Auschwitz-Birkenau - Poland

Thursday July 24 

Today we had 2 half day tours with Wojtek as our driver. After breakfast we drove to Wieliczka Salt Mine to visit the famous Royal Salt Mine with numerous underground chambers, chapels and salt sculptures that is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Wojtek met us and explained our day. The salt mine was around 30 minutes from Krakow, and he took us to get our tickets and told us where to stand in line. We were early and he pointed out a nice area to a small park to walk around until it was time to line up. He said he was going back home to have breakfast and would be back to pick us up.

Greg & Wojtek




walking around the small park - there as a small forest where we saw a variety of Creeper (bird)


part of the facotry

We got sectioned off into a group and our guide led us down the 800 or more stairs. The Tourist Route guided tour takes approximately 2 hours. (at the end we returned to the surface by elevator)

From Neolithic times, sodium chloride (table salt) was produced here from the upwelling brine. The Wieliczka salt mine, excavated from the 13th century and produced table salt continuously until 1996, as one of the world's oldest operating salt mines. Due to falling salt prices and mine flooding, commercial salt mining was discontinued in 1996.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine reaches a depth of 1,073 ft and extends via horizontal passages and chambers for over 178 miles. The rock salt is naturally of varying shades of grey, resembling unpolished granite rather than the white crystalline substance that might be expected.

The mine features dozens of statues and four chapels carved out of the rock salt by the miners. The older sculptures have been supplemented with new carvings made by contemporary artists. There is also an underground lake with a short sound and light show with the music of Frédéric Chopin, exhibits on the history of salt mining, and a 2.2-mile visitors' route which is less than 2 percent of the mine passages' total length. The St. Kinga Chapel and specific chambers are used for private functions, including weddings. A chamber has walls carved by miners to resemble wood, as in wooden churches built in early centuries. 

getting ready to go down into the mine

our guide

elevator shafts










salt in the walls






"cauliflower salt"



























St. Kinga Chapel - even the chandeliers are made from salt
St. Kinga Chapel 
chandelier made from salt
Last Supper














Pope John Paul ll

leaving St. Kinga Chapel

part of the wooden staircase we used







the lake with the light show & Chopin music








grotto in the second lake




Greg on the left




banquet room down there








After the tour, Wojtek pointed out where we could grab some lunch and he met us after.

Warzelnia Smakow Restaurant - lunch stop

Pierogi Dumplings - Ruskie with cottage cheese, potatoes & onion

We continued to the Auschwitz – Birkenau Museum, which is also on the UNESCO list. It was around a 2-hour drive to get there. Wojtek had music on, and we took in the views/snoozed and he pointed out a few things here and there.

Once we arrived Wojtek got us our tickets for the guided small group tour. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest in the Third Reich as well as the most notorious of the six concentration and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany to implement its Final Solution policy.

From the website of the Museum, “Auschwitz I is where the Nazis opened the first Auschwitz camps for men and women, where they carried out the first experiments at using Zyklon B to put people to death, where they murdered the first mass transports of Jews, where they conducted the first criminal experiments on prisoners, where they carried out most of the executions by shooting, where the central jail for prisoners from all over the camp complex was located in Block No. 11, and where the camp commandant's office and most of the SS offices were located. From here, the camp administration directed the further expansion of the camp complex.

Birkenau is where the Nazis erected most of the machinery of mass extermination in which they murdered approximately one million European Jews. At the same time, Birkenau was the largest concentration camp (with nearly 300 primitive barracks, most of them wooden). Over a hundred thousand prisoners were here in 1944: Jews, Poles, Roma, and others. The nearly 200 hectares of grounds include the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria and places filled with human ashes. There are primitive prisoner barracks and kilometers of fences and roads.”

When we were in Prague, we visited the concentration camp in Terezin. Terezín was a propaganda ghetto and transit camp, while Auschwitz was a massive and efficient complex for forced labor and mass extermination. The deception of Terezín was a key part of the larger horror carried out at Auschwitz.

The buildings are original, but the insides are presented authentically to show various scenarios. The tour did a great job of presenting the horrors that happened and explaining the various areas. We started the tour in Auschwitz. Photos were allowed everywhere except the human hair that the SS kept and the standing cells in Block 11 where they were sent to stand in small narrow cells as a severe form of punishment. They were roughly 1 square yard with 4 to a cell with only 1 square inch opening for air. They could be in there for days at a time.

Particularly poignant was the visit to the former gas chamber and crematorium, where out of respect for the thousands murdered by the SS, we were instructed to maintain silence.





blurry photo of our guide




The main entrance to the Auschwitz camp. The sign above the gate says "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free)
every prisoner came through these gates (and then we entered...)












commemorative urn of human remains










canisters that contained zyklon B, a pesticide used for killing victims in the gas chambers



in this barrack are some of the belongings plundered from the victims of KL Auschwitz by the SS, found after the liberation of the camp - eyeglasses in this photo
scarves
eyeglasses
various medical devices



porcelain

piles of shoes







luggage



a typical interior of a prisoners' room during the first few weeks of the camp's existence
it eventually progressed to this







latrine



The block elder's room - fellow prisoners were appointed to ruthlessly supervise fellow prisoners


the orderly SS - officer who was on duty in this room often executed the sentences of the Gestapo Summary Court

The Black Wall - firing squad wall





If any prisoners were missing the remaining prisoners were punished by having to stand at attention for long periods of time. To intimidate the prisoners, they carried out public hangings here. (after the war the Museum reconstructed the gallows.

booth where the SS men responsible for conducting role call and collecting reports on number of prisoners took shelter in inclement weather





a barrack of the camp Gestapo was located here
on April 16, 1947, the founder and first commandant of the camp was hanged at this location in accordance with the verdict of the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland
going into the gas chamber and the crematorium 

going room to room




exit of the gas chamber


After Auschwitz we had a short restroom break and then caught the bus to Birkenau. It has the famous view of the railroad tracks leading to the extermination camp.

map of Birkenau


train tracks to the termination camp
























memorial tablets, each of them in a different European language






ruins







original gate to the concentration camp






To the memory of the men, women, and children who fell victim to the Nazi genocide. Here lies their ashes. May their souls rest in peace.











final shot looking back from about 2 blocks away

After the tours we had about 3 hours of driving to get back to Krakow. We were tired and decided to have dinner at the rooftop restaurant of the hotel. Besides the great views the food was really good. 

Beef Burger with roasted bacon, camembert, crispy potato pancake, fried red onion, sriracha mayo mayo, arugula & padron peppers
Creamy beetroot risotto with blue goat cheese, chanterelles, walnuts and seasonal fruits

After dinner we decided to go for a walk around the lake near Wawel Hill and of course grabbed some gelato. 



the ice cream was "meh"





magnet

Wojtek gave us the time to meet tomorrow as he would be our driver to The Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa.







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