Day 252: Tarnowskie Gory Mines

Off we go again! Back in the car heading north-west, this time to the town of Tarnowskie Gory. This UNESCO site was another mine, this one a lead-silver-zinc mine. The website said they offered underground tours, and some in English, but was a bit vague on the details though implied they might've been at midday.

So we arrived about 11:45am and after some difficult conversation with the reception people, the only tour available was at 12pm and was in Polish. And the tour would entirely consist of excitable schoolchildren. Fun! Oh well, they at least gave us some information leaflets in English.

The underground mines are huge, very deep and with 200km worth of tunnels. Obviously it's mostly closed now and mining no longer happens, but it's still interesting to see the history of mining down here. The key feature of this mine was actually water management - obviously water leakage is a problem in most mines, but here it was a particular issue I guess because of the lead?

Anyway, they dug these underground canal type things called adits which allowed them to divert water where they wanted around the mine, keeping it away from the worked areas. The highlight of the underground tour was taking a boat ride along one of the canals for several hundred metres. I did have thoughts of the salt mines story about capsizing tourist boats, but this was so narrow it would've been impossible for the boat to capsize!

Returned to the surface after around 90 minutes, where we had a quick McDonalds lunch and then headed off to Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots-lav). It was a couple of hundred kilometres away, but motorway all the way and you can cruise at the 140km/h limit (or faster if you want, police enforcement is pretty lax and fines are pretty low). I didn't push it that much.

Arrived at our apartment, a brand-new building on the edge of the city centre. Probably a gentrifying area! Had a mis-understanding with our host, as he didn't realise we were bringing a dog. He didn't realise his listing said pets were allowed, and we'd forgotten to mention it when booking. Though once he saw Schnitzel was small and not likely to leave tufts of hair everywhere he said it was OK, just no dogs on the couch or bed. So Schnitzel will have to sleep in his own bed for a few nights.

Stayed in for the evening as it was bitterly cold and raining on and off. Shandos ventured to a nearby supermarket to grab a packet of Polish dumplings, though sadly they weren't as good as a previous brand we'd tried.Read more