Graphite mine Český Krumlov

This guide to the graphite mine beneath Český Krumlov is led by a real former miner, walking you through tunnels that went silent in March 2003 when the last graphite car rolled out. It follows the mineral back to a 1540s English discovery and its journey into the pencils of draughtsmen and artists, the 1846 rush that saw thirty-eight mining associations stake claims on this hillside, and the nearly one thousand people who worked these hills by the 1870s, their hammering audible from the middle of town. The tunnels below run for thirteen kilometers, cool and dim even in summer.