Mining Museum

Yesterday we spent two hours at the Mining Museum in Salgótarján. It is the only mine in all of Hungary where you can actually go down into the mining shaft, and there are only two such mines in all of Europe.
First we had a tour of the actual museum (inside, above ground), where information was relayed by a man who worked there (in Hungarian) and then translated into English by one of tourist students associated with the Bolyai Janos Gimnazium undergraduate program. Salgótarján was initially founded as a mining village.
Among other things, we saw a communist-era pamphlet encouraging mining, and Jerry got to meet a 15th century miner.

After that tour, we were taken under ground and we wore mining coats and helmet.


There were lifesize figures of miners in certain locations, and we got to see much of the machinery that they would have used in different time periods.

And then Danielle and I decided to try to fit both of us into one miners' jacket... and succeeded: