Underground Tourist Route in Opatów

Description

The dungeons of Opatów were created in times of the city"s prosperity caused by its growing influence and its location: here the merchant routes of Silesia – Cracow  – Great Poland and Pomeranian – Ruthenia crossed. The city walls gave limited space for new constructions and the existing cellars were insufficient for the growing merchant warehouses and craftsmen storages.

That is why the townsmen and craftsmen decided to dig below the first storey of cellars – in that way the second and third storeys were created. They had no regular character and were usually built without any lining in the soft, loess ground. After the years of oblivion, the problem of cellars returned as soon as the historic buildings in the Old Town mysteriously started to crack and deteriorate. The rescue for the Opatów buildings came with the experts from the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Kraków. The renovation plan was accompanied with the idea of opening the underground tourist route. It is 335 meter long and covers over 46 chambers on three levels bored under the Market Square. All year long a fixed temperature resembling the average temperature of the region (7-10 oC) can be observed.