There was something going on in the middle of the square with what looked like military folks, a flag at half mast and a lot of onlookers. All the proceedings were in Polish – so, I understood nothing of it!

As a last destination for this trip, I headed out to Old Town. It being a Friday evening, it was vibrant with al lot of people and activities. The cafes and restaurants were doing brisk business.

This completely destroys my mental picture of a mine. First, a church and now a beautiful lake.

We were not allowed to go in the water but I bet it would have been a floating in the Dead Sea kind of experience.

It appears that these mines were not just a work place. Some 400 feet below the surface, in one of the large chambers in the mine, a whole church has been built out. With some intricate carvings of Biblical scenes on the wall. I understand three artists completed this over 64 years or so.

Every Sunday, there is a mass here! Weddings are regularly held here. And you thought mining is the pits!!

I asked the guide – “So, you make the bride walk down all these steps in her high heels to get married?”

All future brides would be relieved to hear that they have a special elevator for that purpose!!

Apparently, it was not the engineers or managers (I am sure there were managers even in those days). The sculpture in the rock salt shows the job that paid the most. These were folks who would try to detect the presence of flammable gas and burn them away. They would crawl on the floor with a fire held high. The leaking gas would be detected thus and they had no option but to wait and burn it off all. Once in a while, they would lose their lives to an explosion. Which is why the premium in their pay!

Now, this is what I was sort of expecting to see – white fluffy salt deposits (like you see on the banks of Dead Sea). These is actually water that has dripped and then evaporated in a cave. Somewhat like the stalactites and stalagmites that we learnt in our geography class in seventh or eighth grade.

Frankly, I was not sure what I was going to see once in the mine. I can visualize what the walls of a coal mine might look like but could not quite visualize a salt mine. In my mind, you get salt by evaporating ocean water.

I understand this particular part of the world was under water some 14 million years back. When the ocean evaporated, it left all the salt in the ground.

This is how it looks. You might mistake it to be granite or some kind of rock from inside. Till you try tasting a bit of it. (Yes, I did!!). It is much cooler to touch. Apparently, that is how miners would recognize salt deposits while digging. They would check how cool it was to touch. I guess going around licking after every swing of the pick axe would have been impractical and perhaps dangerous.

We were informed that wood was always used inside the mine instead of metal since metal would corrode from the effect of salt. Plus, I suspect wood was cheaper in this part of the country.

Everything around us was salt rock like this. Even the floor – which looked like marbled floors you see at home was salt.