Open-Air Mining Museum, Banská Štiavnica

The Open-Air Mining Museum (Banské múzeum v prírode) in Banská Štiavnica is the oldest and thematically broadest mining exhibition in Slovakia. It belongs to the Slovak Mining Museum (Slovenské banské múzeum), which runs several exhibitions in the town, and lies about a kilometre from the historic centre in a picturesque valley below the Klinger tajch, an artificial mining reservoir. For centuries Banská Štiavnica was one of Europe's most important centres of silver and gold mining, and here you can not only look at mining machinery but also go underground through a real adit.

The Slovak Mining Museum was founded in 1964. The following year work began on turning the former mine yard of the Ondrej shaft and the Bartolomej adit into a museum, and the first part of the surface and underground exhibition opened to visitors in 1974. For more than half a century, then, the museum has been showing the development of ore mining in Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century.

What to see

• The underground exhibition in the Bartolomej adit — the main reason to come. Visitors are given a helmet and a lamp, go down a staircase into the mine workings and walk through old galleries with a guide. The most valuable underground exhibit is a horse-powered whim (gápeľ), the only surviving machine of its kind in Slovakia for hoisting ore out of a shaft by horse power.
• Kachelmann's water-column hoisting engine — the highlight of the surface area, moved here from the Lill shaft in Hodruša. In the 18th century such engines saved local mining from collapse by pumping water out of deep shafts, and they were then world-leading technology.
• The surface exhibition — mine buildings and equipment from various mining districts of Slovakia, a headframe, mine cars, mining machines and an exhibition on quarrying.
• The educational geological exhibition — a small area presenting the geological development of Slovakia: a large geological map and around 70 rock samples, among which you can look for a stone from your home region.

Practical information

The museum stands on the southern edge of town, on Jozefa Karola Hella street, in the direction of Štiavnické Bane; from the centre of Banská Štiavnica it is about a kilometre on foot or a few minutes by car. Underground tours start at fixed times (several times a day on weekdays, more often at weekends), the museum is usually closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and the schedule changes from month to month — exact hours and prices are in the "At a glance" box. The museum recommends booking a tour in advance; a tour in English must be ordered at least 24 hours ahead and carries a surcharge. Tickets are sold online and at the ticket office; reduced tickets for disabled visitors only at the ticket office.

The tour lasts 90–100 minutes. Underground it is 8–10 °C, so bring warm clothes and sturdy shoes; helmets and lamps are provided on site, and a cape can be bought at the ticket office in bad weather. There are 130 steps down to the adit, which have to be climbed back up after the tour, so the underground section is not suitable for people with claustrophobia or limited mobility. Those who do not want to go underground can buy a cheaper ticket for the surface exhibition only. For school-age children the underground tour is a real adventure.

Nearby: trails and peaks

The long ridge route Rudná magistrála: Veľký Inovec – Kadak passes almost by the museum, and close by is the Andrej Kmeť Trail, named after the well-known Štiavnica naturalist. The First Marked Tourist Trail in Slovakia also starts from the town — a fine way to continue the mining theme with a walk in the Štiavnica Mountains. 5.5 km to the south lies Počúvadlo — historic mining lake below Sitno: one of the artificial reservoirs miners once built to supply water to the mine machinery.

Official website: muzeumbs.sk

Photos: Branik P, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; Juhele_CZ, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.