Wieliczka Salt Mine

On the outskirts of Krakow there is an old salt mine that was once a major source of wealth for the country. While much of the rock salt has been removed and production is entirely from evaporation now, they still milk it for all it's worth and have made it a pretty darn spectacular tourist attraction.

You first start out going down something like 200 flights of stairs. Dizzy!

The tunnels and walls were all carved originally by the miners and everything seeped salt. The tour guide offered up the walls, free of charge, for tasting. Greg, of course, took her up on it and tasted every new type he could find. Licking the walls, crazy guy!

Out of boredom, or pride, or something, a bunch of the miners started carving statues out of the rock salt. Some of them were pretty darn cool.
This water was so salty that even Greg stopped tasting things after that.
The most impressive thing by far was the cathedral underground. This picture in no way does it justice. You come out into this open space after wandering through tunnels and small caves. There are chandeliers and carvings and simply an amazing open space that blows your mind.

Everything was made of salt, even this monster.
With the soft lighting and the warm stone, it was one of the most simple, reverent places.
I couldn't get over that it was just a bunch of miners that did these carvings, in their time off after putting a full day of work in none the less!Daniel and Eric, half asleep 300 meters below ground. One of the underground lakes.
I like this picture, even though it is out of focus.
Since the whole place is made of salt, and salt attracts water of course, there is a pretty big danger of saturation and subsequent cave-ins. Didn't bother to do anything about it until tourism became the major source of income, but you cant smash a bunch of tourists now, can you? So now the biggest rooms are held up by impressive wood scaffolding.
This little tunnel lake used to be open for tourists, but some Russian solders drowned there one year and they shut it down. The story is they capsized the boat partying so hard. Many of them were trapped underneath, because they couldn't dive under due to their buoyancy in the salty water. So, they didn't drown, but suffocated... hard to believe, but it make a fun horror story.
The elevator ride back up was amazingly sketchy. It was a metal cage that whizzed through pitch blackness for what seemed like ages. Ears popping and feet rattling, we did eventually make it to the top and the blessed sunshine.

Here we are, unaware of what lies ahead.