Mine of Sal-Gema in Loulé invites the trip to the center of the earth

A Mina de Sal-Gema, under the city of Loulé, invites a trip to the center of the land where millions of years ago there was sea and, from November, the public will be able to have lunch 230 meters deep.

Access to the mine, currently without salt extraction and only dedicated to tourist and scientific activities, is done through a small lift on a three-minute journey that transports the visitor to a scenic atmosphere.

Before entering the elevator, geologist Renato Godinho distributes reflective vests and helmets, explaining that underground lunches, which last about two hours, intend to recreate the old mining tradition of the lunches.

“ The idea will be to receive 20 people, who make the descent to the mine and have the opportunity to also know the collection of Santa Bárbara, the patron saint of the miners, which is often an experience that not everyone can have ", says.

At a depth equivalent to a 70-story building, a maze of galleries and chambers with 45 kilometers of extension was excavated from the 1960s, but since 2019 alternative activities to the extraction of salt-gima began to develop in the mine, with a strong tourist component.

Renato Godinho adds that it is expected that underground lunches will happen twice a month, for a limited group of 20 people, in a menu that is served in lunches and recreates the gastronomy of the Algarve mountain.

“ The aim is to recover or to experience the foods of the old, the saw, the food of the miner ", explains, stressing that the objective is to attract not only tourists as residents, that is, to have a regular occupation.

The project was born of a partnership between the Association of the Lands and Peoples of the Mediterranean Diet, and Tech Salt, a space promoter, who has already organised cultural and gastronomic events there, although without regularity.

But anyone who thinks that he may be insecure at that depth is deceived: if there is an earthquake, the probability of feeling there is almost nonexistent. This is because the salt-gima rocks have properties that absorb the possible impacts of seismic waves, explains Alexandre Andrade, operational director of TechSalt.

Even next to the gallery where lunch is served, is the exhibition “Santa Barbara, Patroness of Mineiros and Other Arts”, inaugurated in 2022 and that gives to know a devotion associated to the life and risks of underground work.

The exhibition, consisting of 160 pieces from the 16th century to the contemporary era, belongs to the collection of Fernando de Mello Mendes, mine engineer and professor of the Technical Higher Institute, who, being the son and grandson of miners, gathered, for almost 50 years, pieces related to that divinity.

After his death, the preservation of the collection allowed to avoid the dispersion of the collection and to install a substantial part in the mine of Loulé.

The mining lunch experience, which includes access to the exhibition and a guided tour in Portuguese and English, costs 50 euros and can be booked via the TechSalt website.