Aurelia Gold Mine in Złotoryja

The "Aurelia" Gold Mine in Złotoryja is a disused mine open to visitors as an underground gallery on the slopes of St Nicholas Hill, at an altitude of 220 metres above sea level, within the city's administrative boundaries. The site is managed by the Złotoryja Centre of Culture and Recreation.

History of the gallery

The first mentions of the working date back to 1660, when it was described as a roughly hundred-metre gallery bored in search of copper ore. The exact date the mine was established is not known, but there is a strong likelihood that mining activity at this site began as early as the 12th century and was linked to gold extraction. During operation in the 17th century, small quantities of copper and silver were mined here, while there is no information on the scale of the gold extraction itself. The gallery was eventually closed because further extraction was no longer profitable.

Opening to tourists

The mine was opened to tourist traffic in 1973. During further exploration of the corridors in 1998, a 28-metre vertical shaft was discovered, named "Karol's Shaft", and in 2000 side branches off the main gallery were found. The name "Aurelia" itself was coined in the 1990s with tourists in mind, referring to the Latin word for gold (aurum) and to Złotoryja's former 13th-century name, Mons Aurum.

Legend of the underground passage

Among local residents, stories circulated that the gallery was supposedly connected by underground corridors to St Nicholas's Church standing above it. However, no such corridors have ever been found.

Around the entrance

At the entrance to the mine, on Stroma Street, there is a car park with tourist infrastructure and a trough for recreational gold panning. The nearby Gold Museum on Zaułek Street 2 displays collections related to ore extraction in the Złotoryja area.

Practical information

• Location: Złotoryja, Złotoryja County
• Seasonal site, open from May to the end of September daily from 10:00 to 17:00; from October to December visits are possible only by prior booking
• Admission is paid, visitors are let in in groups of up to 10 people every 30 minutes, and the visit itself takes about 20 minutes
• A protective helmet is compulsory and available on site; given the damp ground, shoe covers are also useful
• Access from the entrance side runs along Stroma Street, where there is also a car park
• Nearby is the Gold Museum in Złotoryja, and a little further on the Wilcza Góra nature reserve
• It is worth checking opening hours and booking conditions on the culture centre's website before visiting