Open:
1. April to 31.10 7:30am to 7:30pm
2. November to 31. March 8:00am to 5:00pm
In order to see the mines, you must take a tour. English tours are 61 to 64 zl depending on which month you go, or 46 to 49 for a reduced price ticket (children 4 to 15, students with student ID card). Children under 4 years old are free!
**If you want to take pictures, you need to pay 10 zl and they will give you a badge to put on your shirt. The tour guide will probably notice if you don't have the badge so I wouldn't recommend trying to get away with picture-taking without it.
web site: www.kopalnia.pl
Check the web site for tour times in various languages. Tours are very frequent in July and August, much less so in the winter.
My boyfriend and I were unsure about whether to go to the salt mine. We both thought it sounded really good, but some reviews I had read said it wasn't worth the price. We did go, however, and I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would! Also, we got student tickets, which helped us out a lot.
Getting there: I had read about lots of minibuses you can take, but when we were there, I didn't see any, so we took the regular bus. Perhaps these minibuses are more frequent in the summer. The bus was quite confusing. Take bus 304. The bus is on Pawia street, on the other side of the huge shopping center from the main train station. A one-way ticket costs 2.60. If you use the machine at the bus stop, you can also use notes, but if you use the machine on the bus, you need coins. You cannot buy tickets directly from the driver. The info sheet we picked up at the tourist office said that the trip would take 30 to 40 minutes. It took us 50 minutes. The first twenty or thirty minutes were spent just traveling around Krakow, so if you can find the bus 304 stop on the other side of the old town, it might be more comfortable. The next problem we encountered was, where do we get off the bus? The girl at the tourist info office said to get off in the center and that the town is not big, but it's not true at all. We definitely passed a stop called "centrum" or something similar, but luckily a woman on the bus helped us. Unfortunately I still don't know the name of the stop, but it's the second to the last stop on 304. You will see on the right side of the bus, a footpath that goes straight downhill beside a walled cemetery. This is where you get off, follow the path down until you reach a busy street, turn left and you will see the billboard for the mines. You will then see the entrance and follow the path up to the ticket office. The walk from the bus stop takes about ten minutes.
The tour: I was also unsure about how long the tour would last, as every source I had varied from 1.5 to 3.5 hours. I think our tour was about 2 hours long. When it finishes, you have the option to linger in the restaurant or continue to a tour of the museum. The museum was included in the price of our tickets, so we went along. This took about an hour, but the tour guide really rushed us. I don't know if it was because it was the end of the day and our tour guide was eager to get off on time, or if we started the tour too late or what, but it was a little bit annoying. She didn't give us much time to explore each room and she got angry at some members of our group, who lingered behind after she had moved on to another room.
On the tour, you will start with a lot of steps going down. Then you will see lots of different rooms, salt sculptures and chapels. We got to see one chapel that they only open in the winter, because they want to preserve it. We also learned about the history of the mines, which was interesting. The museum has examples of salt crystal formations, historical documents from the mine, and tools that were used in excavating the salt. If it doesn't cost extra, it's a good deal and I recommend it, despite being a bit rushed.
All in all, I had a good time on the tour, but I can imagine the tour groups might be much larger and less pleasant in the summer months. Our group was only about 15 people and was pretty pleasant. Plus, it's just a cool experience, if you've never been in a salt mine before :)
by caromeow on November 29, 2008
Wieliczka Salt Mine
10 Danilowicza Street Krakow, Poland