Salt therapy and a dose of fun help Poles fight long COVID

Salt therapy and a dose of fun help Poles fight long COVID

Gyrating with gusto to the sounds of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun“, a group of middle-aged Poles is fighting off lingering COVID symptoms with gym circuits. But this is no ordinary fitness workout. It is taking place 130 meters (427 feet) underground in a cavernous space next to a dark green brine lake in a former salt mine in southern Poland that dates back to the 13th century. "When I came down here, I was enchanted by this place,“ participant Jadwiga Nowak told AFP, as other tracksuit-clad attendees raise fitness balls in the air, ride exercise bikes and jog on the spot.

"I felt this atmosphere, this calm, this silence and this air is totally different from the one on the surface. There is magic here,“ said the 60-year-old, who was on a ventilator for 16 days with COVID after being hospitalized in October. One of the world's oldest salt mines, Wieliczka is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Over the centuries, miners turned it into a unique work of art, carving out a maze of tunnels leading to chambers and shrines complete with salt chandeliers. It is a tourist attraction, but also a health resort that has been