While Warsaw is the political capital of Poland, Krakow is the cultural highlight, featuring for example the Wawel castle. But the main attraction is not there either, but in (or rather under) the nearby town of Wieliczka: nine centuries of mining produced a total of about 200 kilometers of passages as well as 2,040 caverns of varied size, placed in 1978 by UNESCO on the first List of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The mine has been visited by tourists since the 15th century, a four-hour tour (which still covers just about 2% of the area) takes you down some two hundred meters to see stunning displays of mining work, giant caverns (big enough to house a secret underground German airplane factory), underground lakes, plenty of sculptures, an orchestra and an incredible church built out of salt by three miners over a period of 70 years. The air is at a constant temperature of 14 degrees Celsius and so healthy that they have some set up a sanatorium for people with respiratory problems. The mine has been in use until just a few years ago and still produces salt from the water that has to be pumped out to keep it from filling up. I have not seen the Pyramids in Egypt, but this mine must be the closest Europe can get to it.