Recently, I attended Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX) in Ostrava i
In an attempt to promote the region that TBEX is held in, they take us bloggers to the interesting sites and on different tours to show us some of the best parts so that we can blog about it and attract more visitors to the region.
I opted to take the mining tour because there have been ongoing mines in Ostrava for hundreds of years. The city's best years were to support the mining and industrial jobs going on there and it built great wealth for the region. In the 1990s, the city decided to cease all mining for environmental and political purposes so now Ostrava is trying to redefine itself by building its economy on tourism, the biggest draw being the Colours of Ostrava music festival that brings in big musical names from around the world. Huge numbers of people flock to Ostrava for this music festival every summer. But there is more to the city than that, not the least of which is a jumping off point to the surrounding mountain regions, and I will show you some examples in the next few videos.
We went to the Michal Mine in Landek Park just on the outskirts of the city of Ostrava. This is the biggest mining museum in Czechia. First, they took us down into the mine in the elevator used by the miners themselves. Our guide told us much about the mining process, the tools that were used, even operating some of the modern machinery used to extract the coal.
The 2nd part of the tour taught us about the rescue workers for the mines and what they had to go through to keep everyone safe. The ginormous fire extinguishers were really eye-catching to me. They let me try the obstacle course that the rescue workers were trained in, basically climbing up and down stairs and ladders and crawling through tight spaces.
To end the tour, they showed us the changing room. Hundreds of clothing articles literally hanging on chains from the ceiling. It looked like something from a horror movie.
Stay tuned for more from Ostrava and the Czech Republic.
Have you ever toured a mine before?