The Wieliczka Salt Mine is a place that attracts thousands of tourists from Poland and abroad each year. More than 700 years of tradition, twisting underground corridors and extraordinary salt sculptures will enchant you and stay in your memory for a long time. We have prepared a few useful tips to make it easier for you to organise a trip to the Salt Mine in Wieliczka.

Visiting the Salt Mine in Wieliczka – duration

When planning a trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, remember to include the time you need to reach this place and the duration of the tour. The tour itself takes ca. 2.5-3 hours, and the journey to Wieliczka could take anything between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on which place in Kraków is your starting point. You could therefore say you need half a day for the whole trip.

Wieliczka Salt Mine – only with a guide

The Wieliczka Salt Mine is a genuine maze of underground corridors, whose total length amounts to a few hundred kilometres. That’s why it’s impossible to visit it on your own – that would be far too risky. You can explore the mine only with a guide. The tours are organised for groups of 15 people. Organised groups need to book the entrance time in advance, while individual tourists can join the groups that enter the mine with the guide at a specific time.

Guided tour of the Mine – available in a few languages

The default language for guided tours of the Salt Mine is Polish or English. If you need a guide speaking another language, you should contact the Mine in advance and book a guided tour in the language of your choice.

Buying tickets for the Salt Mine – at the cash desk or online

The Wieliczka Salt Mine  sells tickets at the cash desk near the entrance or online, on its website. It’s better to book the tickets online in advance, which means you can be sure that the tour will take place as scheduled. Unless you book the tour online, it could turn out that you will have to wait a couple of hours before you are admitted, or you won’t be able to visit the Salt Mine on the preferred date.

Organise the trip on your own or use a service

When planning a tour of the Salt Mine, you can plan it all by yourself: from finding the means of transport to booking the ticket. In order to do it, though, you would have to be familiar with all the transport options to Wieliczka, find available parking lots (if you choose to travel by car) and book the tickets in advance. This means you will need ca. an hour to organise the whole trip to Wieliczka on your own. But you can also use the services offered by external companies. In this case, you only need to provide the date of the trip and the address where you want to be picked up. All the rest will be handled by the organiser. You will only have to remember to be at the selected address on the specific date and time, with some snacks and a solid batch of good humour.