Krakow via Wieliczka Salt Mine

We're headed back to Krakow, Poland, as our departure city from this multi-country tour of Central/Eastern Europe.
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Now in southern Poland, we're treated to views of a series of modern bridges.

​Before we settle back into Krakow for a couple of nights prior to our flight out to England, we toured the Wieliczka Salt Mine.  When we were in Krakow previously, everyone kept asking, have you toured the salt mine.  We figured now is our chance, as we hadn't previously planned this into the itinerary.

"From Neolithic times, sodium chloride (table salt) was produced there from the upwelling brine. The Wieliczka salt mine, excavated from the 13th century, produced table salt continuously until the turn of the 20th, as one of the world's oldest operating salt mines. Throughout its history, the royal salt mine was operated by the Żupy Krakowskie (Kraków Salt Mines) company.

Due to falling salt prices and uneconomical control of mine flooding, commercial salt mining was discontinued in 1996.
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The Wieliczka Salt Mine is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its attractions include the shafts and labyrinthine passageways, displays of historic salt-mining technology, an underground lake, four chapels and numerous statues carved by miners out of the rock salt, and more recent sculptures by contemporary artists."

We head into the mine with our guided tour group.

Seams of salt in the walls.

The gift shop had been an intermediate stop, in this case we exit out through the cafeteria.  The food looked good and we were hungry, and the price was right, so we dined.

Four months of touring ends here, inside the salt mine.  Luckily, fortunately, we're retired, so now it's not, on Monday, "back to the salt mine".