Salzburg Salt Mines!

The next day, (Thursday), we were supposed to go on a city tour straight after breakfast. There was, however, a slight mix-up in communication with our guide, and she had no idea that she was taking us anywhere that day. So off to the salt mines we went. I was thinking we would just kind of go walk around in some dark caves, listening to some guy rattle on about the wealth of Salzburg (Salzburg= salt castle). Boy was I wrong.
And boy am I glad I was wrong. This was probably my favorite favoritest thing we did while we were there. First off, to protect our clothes we got these white mining suits that made us looking like we were KKK members. I guess we all kind of looked like snow monsters, too. To get into the mines we got to ride this crazy little train thing, which was pretty fun in itself. We walked through the mines a ways and every little bit there were some video clips we watched about the history of Salzburg and what salt did for the growth and economy of the city. Part of the salt mines also crosses over the German border and the Swiss border- within an hour I had visited three different countries. Sweetness. We also crossed one of the salt mine lakes in a boat during part of the tour, which was cool. But my favoritest part of my favoritest favorite part of Salzburg were the slides. There were two wooden slides we slid down to get deeper into the mines, one 27 meters and one 42 meters long. I could have gone down those slides all day they were so fun, plus our marshmallow uniforms made us slide like a dream. It was great. We kept walking through, tasted some brine, and admiring the cool salt formations. Our guide had been an actual miner too, until 1989 when they closed the mines because they were no longer profitable enough. He has been giving tours ever since.





After one of the video clips our guide asked if anyone had any questions. There were a bunch of adorable little children on the tour with us, and without any hesitation one piped up, “When do we get out of here?” Everyone laughed pretty hard at that. We then took an escalator and another little train out of the salt mines. That place was so so so much fun. And I loved it. I want to go down the slide again.