Category Archives: Blog

Catedral de Sal de Zipaquirá

Posted on by under Blog, Out and About

The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, one of the world’s subterranean wonders, is an underground Roman Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine. This ancient salt mine and monumental masterpiece is buried more than 650 feet deep into a halite mountain near the town of Zipaquirá, Colombia. The mine brings precise engineering to a set of Catholic religious scenes. Depicted in intricate carvings, cavernous chambers, and the world’s largest underground cross; all of the sculptures are made entirely of salt. There are only two such underground salt cathedrals on the planet (the other is in Poland). This subterranean temple is a

This underground temple has three sections, representing the birth, life, and death of Jesus. through a vast network of labyrinthine corridors and tucked-away sanctuaries. The icons, ornaments and architectural details are hand carved in the halite rock. Some marble sculptures are included. The main altar comes centered on a dramatically illuminated “floating” cross, massive enough to be cited as the world’s largest underground cross.

A concept born of a much smaller sanctuary, which was dug out by miners here back in the ‘30s, who used it as a place to pray for protection and safety in their dangerous line of work, the space soon developed into a larger “cathedral” project for public audiences in the ‘50s. Structural instability on that site led it to being moved to its current location – set some 200 feet deeper than the original mine – in 1995.

On Sundays, the salt cathedral – a functioning church – is a popular point of pilgrimage for local Colombians. While a functioning church that receives as many as 3,000 visitors on Sundays, it has no bishop and therefore has no official status as a cathedral in Catholicism

IMG_5041 Continue reading →