History of “WIELICZKA” Salt Mine
The “Wieliczka” Salt Mine is one of the most valuable monuments of material and spiritual culture in Poland. Each year it is visited by more than one million tourists from all over the world. It is also a world class monument, featured on the UNESCO’s World Cultural and Natural Heritage List. Today, the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine combines many centuries of tradition and modernity, the history of several hundred years and an underground metropolis with extensive infrastructure including the Chapel of St. Kinga and the legend about Princess Kinga and how she brought the salt treasure to Poland. The Mine is so vast; they have held underground music concerts, and sporting events within the large caverns of the mine.
The “Wieliczka” Salt Mine offers treatment services in the underground chambers of the mine using the unique micro-climate free of pollution and allergens, rich in micronutrients, with a constant temperature, high humidity, and free from harmful radiation. In 1843 Doctor Felix Boczkowski discovered that the presence of the air in the salt mines in Wieliczka in Poland saturated with dry salt particles caused healing effects on people with pulmonary and respiratory problems. These innovative treatment methods of Subterranotherapy and Halotherapy were created here and active rehabilitation of the respiratory system is still conducted at the mine using the medicinal properties of the underground environment at the largest underground rehabilitation and treatment center in the world.
Today, the Wieliczka Salt Mine is the world leader in providing innovative rehabilitation and treatment of respiratory diseases by combining both the natural microclimate of the underground salt excavations and the best practices of contemporary medicine. The activities of the health resort are based on best practices of modern medicine and are conducted in cooperation with the most eminent medical scientists. The treatments are beneficial to patients suffering from asthma, COPD, recurrent infections of the upper and lower respiratory tract and allergies. Increasingly, many people who do not suffer health problems choose to visit the mine and rest in the depths of the Earth to improve their fitness, attain psycho-physical balance, and regenerate the body.
