St Kinga’s Chapel, Wieliczka Salt Mine

A hundred metres underground, in the salt mine of Wieliczka just outside Kraków, miners spent some seventy years carving a church out of the rock itself. St Kinga’s Chapel has a floor, altars, statues and reliefs of salt, lit by chandeliers hung with salt crystals. It is the high point of the mine’s Tourist Route, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a working chapel where Mass is said every Sunday morning.

A church carved in salt

Salt has been mined at Wieliczka since the Middle Ages, and the miners carved chapels where they worked, to pray for protection in a dangerous trade. The chapel is named after St Kinga, the Hungarian princess who married the Polish duke Bolesław the Chaste in the thirteenth century. Legend says she threw her engagement ring into a salt mine in Hungary, and that it turned up in the first lump of salt dug in Poland. Wieliczka tradition places the find here, though the oldest Life of Kinga, written in the early fourteenth century, sets it at nearby Bochnia.

The chapel was hollowed out in 1896, in a chamber left behind when a great block of salt had been mined. Over the next two decades the miner Józef Markowski, a self-taught sculptor, carved its main altar, its pulpit and side altars; his statue of St Kinga has stood in the altar since 1914, and relics of the saint were placed in the altar niche in 1994. His brother Tomasz and, from 1927, Antoni Wyrodek carved the reliefs on the walls, among them a Last Supper after Leonardo, and Wyrodek designed the salt floor. The carving went on into the 1960s, and new work has been added since, including a statue of Pope John Paul II.

This guide shows the older carvings and the chapel as it appeared on postcards of the early 1920s. The later reliefs, including the famous Last Supper, are still in copyright, so you will have to see them for yourself.

The visitor’s cheat sheet

What to see

The first view

You reach the chapel partway along the Tourist Route and enter at one end, looking down its whole length to the altar, about 54 metres away. The salt walls glitter grey and amber under the chandeliers, and the floor, carved to look like tiles, is a single piece of rock.

The altar and the pulpit

At the far end is Józef Markowski’s main altar, with the statue of St Kinga in its lit central niche. His pulpit and the side altars of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of Mary are on the side walls.

The reliefs

Along the side walls is a cycle of New Testament scenes in shallow relief: the Flight into Egypt, Jesus in the Temple, the Wedding at Cana, Doubting Thomas and others, most of them by Wyrodek, with the Massacre of the Innocents by Tomasz Markowski. The salt Nativity is on the right-hand wall. Most visitors stop longest at the Last Supper, carved in 1935.

St Anthony’s Chapel

Earlier on the route, St Anthony’s Chapel was carved in green salt in the seventeenth century by unknown miners. It is the oldest surviving chapel in the mine, and its figures have been softened by centuries of damp air.

Visiting the mine

The chapel can only be seen on the mine’s guided Tourist Route. It starts at the Daniłowicz Shaft with about 380 steps down, then winds through chambers, lakes and galleries to a depth of 135 metres, about 3.5 km in all including the museum. The walk takes about two hours, and the underground museum at the end adds another hour if you want it. Everyone comes back up in the miners’ lift. Wear comfortable shoes and bring a layer: it is about 17–18°C below ground all year.

Tours run in Polish, English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. English tours run often; other foreign languages less so, and those tickets must be bought online in advance. Large bags and prams must be left at the surface; small folding buggies are allowed, but there is nowhere to leave them underground. Some chambers are adapted for wheelchair users on special tours booked ahead.

Getting there

Wieliczka is about 10 km south-east of Kraków. The easiest way is the SKA1 train from Kraków Główny, the main station, to Wieliczka Rynek-Kopalnia, which runs every 30 minutes and takes about 25 minutes; the mine is a few minutes’ walk from the station. The same line runs from Kraków airport. Bus 304 also runs from near the main station. If you drive, there are car parks by the shaft.

Don’t miss

• The first view of the chapel From the entrance end.
• St Kinga on the altar Markowski’s statue of 1914.
• The salt chandeliers Crystals of rock salt.
• The Last Supper Carved in salt in 1935.
• St Anthony’s Chapel Seventeenth-century, the oldest.

Insider tips

More churches nearby

• St Vitus Cathedral, Prague — Bohemia’s great Gothic cathedral.
• St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna — the Steffl and its catacombs.
• Sedlec Ossuary — another unforgettable underground chapel.

See all the Polish churches in this guide →