Brom licks the wall

Coocoo

After yesterday's tour, today's tour was completely different. Because today we went underground! And not just to the basement of somewhere, but deep down into the earth. The deepest was 135 meters below the surface (about 443 feet). A very long way down! 

It was salt, I tasted it!!

We walked down a lot of steps. And I mean a lot! Like 800 of them. Or perhaps more, because Mara lost count after only 40-something. The first level was only about 60 meter below the surface and there we were told about the mines. Which were very special mines, because they didn't produce coal or diamonds, they produced salt.

We weren't allowed to touch King Casimir, so please don't tell anyone!

We walked on the salt, the walls were made from salt and the ceilings as well. Everything was salt. Apart from the wooden struts that were everywhere, because without them, the mines would collapse! But it was even more special than that.

I think this is Clumsy

Some of the miners thought it was not enough just to hack at the salt, they decided they could make figures out of them. And not just tiny ones, really really big ones! I saw a king and dwarves and a Mr Goethe, knights and a princess and the best of all: two churches! Made of salt!!!

All the dwarves at work

It was beautiful. My favourite were King Casimir and the dwarves. They were just like the ones from Snow White, but the guide said women weren't allowed to work in the mine at all, as it was considered bad luck! It wasn't until the 1970's that the first women were allowed to work in the mine as tourguides. And we had no bad luck at all with our lovely guide.

The church

The second church we saw was also the best of the two. There used to be salt everywhere, but once they had cleared the salt from that 'room', it was a big room and a total of 3 miners made the church. 

The Last Supper

They carved the reliefs in the wall, the statues, everything. It took them 68 years, but they had to work on it after their normal job. 

Me in a guide's uniform!

Because we were so deep underground, I was quite worried for all those people: how were they going to get back up? But there were some lifts and they were really funny. First they were tiny. We thought four people to a lift was enough, but they squeezed in another five! 

See: 135 meters deep!

And when we went up, we heard chattering all the way. When we got back to the surface, we saw there were three lifts in total, one right on top of another! How brilliant!!

Yum!