A Year in Pictures – Wieliczka Dwarf

[swan_tower]

This work by http://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Wieliczka needs a bit of explanation. It’s a 13th century salt mine that was in continuous operation until 2007, when the double whammy of low salt prices and flooding caused it to close down. But it’s still a major tourist destination, because in addition to the miles of tunnels (178 miles, to be prices) — only a tiny fraction of which are open to the public — the saline lakes, the underground churches, and the incredible architecture of supports propping the place up, there are the sculptures: all carved out of rock salt, most of them by miners, and frankly kind of amazing. This is one of the dwarves that are said to haunt the mine, lurking adorably in the darkness.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

Wow - I've never heard of this. I'm intrigued by the underground churches. There's that underground church in Finland, but churches in a medieval salt mine must be way more underground than that one.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I don't know how deep St. Kinga's Chapel lies, but I think it's at least a couple hundred feet down. (There are other chapels down there, too; that's just the most famous one.)

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

And still in use, too, the Internet tells me... it can be booked for weddings and concerts. Amazing!

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

Love this. I'd love to see it in person.