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Poland is a small country in Europe. This does not mean, however, that there is nothing interesting here

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This is the most popular salt mine in Poland. Is located in Krakow and is 14 million years old. In the mine, there are many interesting sculptures and chapels, for example Nicolaus Copernicus monument or chapel of Saint Kinga. This place is one of the seven Polish wonders.

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The Wieliczka Salt Mine ( Polish: Kopalnia soli Wieliczka), in the town of Wieliczka, southern Poland, lies within the Kraków metropolitan area.

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 2007, 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 mine flooding, commercial salt mining was discontinued in 1996.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine is now an official Polish Historic Monument (Pomnik Historii). 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.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine reaches a depth of 327 meters, and extends via horizontal passages and chambers for over 287 kilometers (178 miles). The rock salt is naturally of varying shades of grey, resembling unpolished granite rather than the white crystalline substance that might be expected.

Since the 13th century, brine welling up to the surface had been collected and processed for its sodium chloride (table-salt) content. In this period, wells began to be sunk, and the first shafts to be dug to extract the rock salt. In the late 13th to the early 14th century, the Saltworks Castle was built. Wieliczka is now home to the Kraków Saltworks Museum.

King Casimir III the Great (reigned 1333-1370) contributed greatly to the development of the Wieliczka Salt Mine, granting it many privileges and taking the miners under his care. In 1363 he founded a hospital near the salt mine.

Over the period of the mine's operation, many chambers were dug and various technologies were added, such as the Hungarian horse treadmill and the Saxon treadmill for hauling salt to the surface. During World War II, the mine was used by the occupying Germans as an underground facility for war-related manufacturing.

The mine features an underground lake, exhibits on the history of salt mining, and a 3.5-kilometer (2.2-mile) visitors' route (less than 2 percent of the mine passages' total length) including statues carved from the rock salt at various times.

In 1978 the Wieliczka was placed on the original UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

A legend about Princess Kinga, associated with the Wieliczka mine, tells of a Hungarian princess about to be married to Bolesław V the Chaste, the Prince of Kraków. As part of her dowry, she asked her father, Béla IV of Hungary, for a lump of salt, since salt was prizeworthy in Poland. Her father King Béla took her to a salt mine in Máramaros. She threw her engagement ring from Bolesław in one of the shafts before leaving for Poland. On arriving in Kraków, she asked the miners to dig a deep pit until they come upon a rock. The people found a lump of salt in there and when they split it in two, discovered the princess's ring. Kinga had thus become the patron saint of salt miners in and around the Polish capital.

During the Nazi occupation, several thousand Jews were transported from the forced labour camps in Plaszow and Mielec to the Wieliczka mine to work in the underground armament factory set up by the Germans in March and April 1944. The forced labour camp of the mine was established in St. Kinga Park and had about 1,700 prisoners. However, manufacturing never began as the Soviet offensive was nearing. Some of the machines and equipment were disassembled, including an electrical hoisting machine from the Regis Shaft, and transported to Liebenau in the Sudetes mountains. Part of the equipment was returned after the war, in autumn 1945. The Jews were transported to factories in Litomierzyce (Czech Republic) and Linz (Austria). ,

The mine is one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments (Pomniki historii), as designated in the first round, 16 September 1994. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland. In 2010 it was successfully proposed that the nearby historic Bochnia Salt Mine (Poland's oldest salt mine) be added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. The two sister salt mines now appear together in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites as the "Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines". In 2013 the UNESCO World Heritage Site was expanded by the addition of the Żupny Castle.

The mine is currently one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments (Pomniki historii), whose attractions include dozens of statues and four chapels carved out of the rock salt by the miners. The older sculptures have been supplemented with new carvings made by contemporary artists. About 1.2 million people visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine annually.

Notable visitors to this site have included Nicolaus Copernicus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, Fryderyk Chopin, Dmitri Mendeleyev, Bolesław Prus, Ignacy Paderewski, Robert Baden-Powell, Jacob Bronowski (who filmed segments of The Ascent of Man in the mine), the von Unrug family (a prominent Polish-German royal family), Karol Wojtyła (later, Pope John Paul II), former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and many others.[citation needed ]

There is a chapel, and a reception room that is used for private functions, including weddings. A chamber has walls carved by miners to resemble wood, as in wooden churches built in early centuries. A wooden staircase provides access to the mine's 64-metre (210-foot) level. A 3-kilometre (1.9-mile) tour features corridors, chapels, statues, and underground lake, 135 metres (443 ft) underground. An elevator (lift) returns visitors to the surface; the elevator holds 36 persons (nine per car) and takes about 30 seconds to make the trip.

The earliest writings about the Wieliczka Salt Mine include a description by Adam Schröter: Salinarum Vieliciensium incunda ac vera descriptio. Carmine elegiaco... (1553); augmented edition, Regni Poloniae Salinarum Vieliciensium descriptio. Carmine elegiaco... (1564).

The Polish journalist and novelist Bolesław Prus described his 1878 visit to the salt mine in a remarkable series of three articles, " Kartki z podróży (Wieliczka)" ["Travel Notes (Wieliczka)"], in Kurier Warszawski (The Warsaw Courier), 1878, nos. 36-38. The great Prus scholar Zygmunt Szweykowski writes: "The power of the Labyrinth scenes [in Prus' 1895 historical novel, ] stems, among other things, from the fact that they echo Prus' own experiences when visiting Wieliczka." The Wieliczka Salt Mine indeed helped inspire . Prus combined his powerful impressions of the salt mine with the description of the ancient Egyptian Labyrinth, in Book II of Herodotus' , to produce the remarkable scenes found in chapters 56 and 63 of his novel.

In 1995, Preisner's Music, a compilation of film music by Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner, was recorded by Sinfonia Varsovia in the Wieliczka mine's chapel. The chapel is often said to have the best acoustics in Europe.

In the Australia television series Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord, the mines were used as the Land of the Moloch.

The mine has appeared on multiple editions of the reality show The Amazing Race including Velyki Perehony, HaMerotz LaMillion 2, The Amazing Race Australia 1, and The Amazing Race 27.

Jerzy Grzesiowski, Wieliczka: kopalnia, muzeum, zamek (Wieliczka: the Mine, the Museum, the Castle), 2nd ed., updated and augmented, Warsaw, Sport i Turystyka, 1987, ISBN 83-217-2637-2.

Christopher Kasparek, "Prus' and the Wieliczka Salt Mine," The Polish Review, 1997, no. 3, pp. 349-55.

Christopher Kasparek, "Prus' Pharaoh: the Creation of a Historical Novel", The Polish Review, vol. XXXIX, no. 1, 1994, pp. 45-50.

Bolesław Prus, Wczoraj-dziś-jutro: wybór felietonów (Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow: a Selection of Newspaper Columns, selected, edited, and with foreword and notes, by Zygmunt Szweykowski), Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973, pp. 34-49.

Zygmunt Szweykowski, Twórczość Bolesława Prusa (The Creative Writing of Bolesław Prus), second edition, Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972.

Marek Żukow-Karczewski, Pięknem urzeczeni (trzy zapomniane relacje) / Enchanted by beauty (three forgotten relations), "Aura" - A Monthly for the Protection and Shaping of Human Environment, no. 1, 1998, pp. 17-19.

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The Wieliczka Salt Mine ( Polish: Kopalnia soli Wieliczka), in the town of Wieliczka, southern Poland, lies within the Kraków metropolitan area. 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 2007, as one of the world's oldest operating salt mines.

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This place can not be compared to any other. I was there only once, but I have to go there again. There are not many such places in the world, so I am proud that it is in my country

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This is the biggest lake located in the Tatra Mountains. Is 862 metres long and 566 metres wide. The lake is surrounded by a mountain range and forest, by what this place is so charming. About this place were created the legends and many poems. Is a must for every mountain expedition.

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Morskie Oko, or Eye of the Sea in English, is the largest and fourth-deepest lake in the Tatra Mountains, in southern Poland. It is located deep within the Tatra National Park in the Rybi Potok (the Fish Brook) Valley, of the High Tatras mountain range at the base of the Mięguszowiecki Summits, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship.

The peaks that surround the lake rise about 1,000 meters above its surface; one of them is Rysy (2,499 meters), the highest peak in the Polish Tatras. Besides Mięguszowiecki Summits (including Mięguszowiecki Szczyt Wielki, 2,438 meters), farther away and slightly to the left, is the distinctive, slender Mnich ("Monk," 2,068 meters). Many Swiss Pines also grow around the lake.

In the past, Morskie Oko was called "Rybie Jezioro" ("Fish Lake") due to its natural stock of fish, which are uncommon in Tatra lakes and ponds. In the clear depths of the water, one can easily notice trout - so-called "famine" trout - that live in the lake. The name "Morskie Oko" ("Sea Eye", "Eye of the Sea") is derived from an old legend, according to which the lake was connected to the sea via an underground passage.

The hut of the Polish Tourism and Local Lore Society ( PTTK) stands on the moraine that closes the lake from the north. The hut is situated 1,405 meters above sea level and belongs to the oldest Tatra chalets. The hut is named after Stanisław Staszic, who explored the lake in 1805. It is a point of departure for hikes to Rysy and Szpiglasowa Przełęcz. Nearby is the Stare Schronisko ("Old Shelter"), originally a coachhouse. Both buildings have been granted historical status.

Morskie Oko is one of the most popular destinations in the Tatras, often receiving over 50,000 visitors during the vacation season. It is reached by foot in about two hours from the nearest road that allows motorized access. Many other tourists opt to take the journey by horse-drawn cart, a large number of which are operated by the local Górale inhabitants. In winter, a short section of the journey is in an avalanche danger zone, and the area can remain cold and rainy even in summer. In the advent of its popularity, visitors have been forbidden from swimming in the lake or feeding the trout.

The earliest documents in which Morskie Oko is mentioned date back to 1575. In 1637, the Polish king Władysław IV granted landowner Wladyslaw Nowobilski the right to use pastures in the area. In 1824, during Partitions of Poland, Morskie Oko became private property, for the time being, when Zakopane estate, including the Dolina Rybiego Potoku, were purchased from the Austrian authorities by Emanuel Homolacs. At the end of the nineteenth century, a boundary dispute arose between Galicia and Hungary over property rights to the lake and adjoining area (the so-called "Morskie Oko dispute"). The Court of Conciliation in Graz ruled in favour of the Polish side. A powerful backer of the Polish cause was Count Wladyslaw Zamoyski. The decision is credited to Oswald Balzer, who represented the Galician government.

Morskie Oko was "rediscovered" for tourism by Dr. Tytus Chałubiński in the mid-nineteenth century; the first shelter was built there in 1836 but burned down in 1865. A second shelter, built in 1874, burned down in 1898. In 1902, a road from Zakopane was completed and named the Oswald Balzer Road. Since 1933 following the return of sovereignty, the lake has been owned by the Polish state.

The charm of Morskie Oko has provided inspiration to many artists, including painters ( Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski, Leon Wyczółkowski, Stanisław Gałek), poets ( Wincenty Pol, Adam Asnyk, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Franciszek Nowicki, Jan Kasprowicz), and composers ( Zygmunt Noskowski). The lake was one of the filming locations for 'The Formula', a short film by musician Sevdaliza in 2015.

Panoramic view of Morskie Oko

View from Rysy to Czarny Staw pod Rysami and Morskie Oko

Morskie Oko in May 2019.

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Morskie Oko, or Eye of the Sea in English, is the largest and fourth-deepest lake in the Tatra Mountains, in southern Poland. It is located deep within the Tatra National Park in the Rybi Potok (the Fish Brook) Valley, of the High Tatras mountain range at the base of the Mięguszowiecki Summits, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship.

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This is my favorite place in Polish mountains. Always when I'm in the mountains I visit this place. I love the peace and charm of this place

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This place was created to easily present science to everyone. Exhibitions at the Copernicus Science Center show in an interesting way phenomena that we learn in boring physics or chemistry lessons. It is an interesting place where you can spend time with your friends without getting bored and learn something interesting at the same time.

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Copernicus Science Centre ( Polish: Centrum Nauki Kopernik) is a science museum standing on the bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw, Poland. It contains over 450 interactive exhibits that enable visitors to single-handedly carry out experiments and discover the laws of science for themselves.

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I was there only twice, but every time I discovered something new there, because the exhibition is still changing. I was surprised. I think I will visit this place again