You ready for more Krakow? Cuz you’re about to get it.
Krakow is located in a really interesting place. It was once a saltwater sea there. That’s why there’s a huge salt mine nearby, it’s the dried remains of the sea. In addition there were people there 120,000 years ago, and rhinos, and mammoths. We’ll get to that in a minute. Here’s an Wikipedia article on Stone Age Poland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone-Age_Poland
Back to architecture in Krakow: in the center of the Old Square is the Cloth Hall which was a massive market for centuries. Now the stalls are filled with vendors selling crafts and tourist items and the second floor is a museum of paintings.
There are seals and crests painted all over the walls for different areas of Poland. This one was my favorite: a sword with two fish gritting their teeth.
Education for everybody is a relatively new development in Western history so I imagine the reason there are sculptures over the doors of some of the older houses was a sign of who lived there to the illiterate. I saw a ton of them. I got pictures of a rhino and a lobster.
An aspect I adore in the architecture I saw was how when chunks of major buildings needed repair or burnt down no one made any attempt to match the style of the original, they used whatever style was popular that day. That’s how you end up with facilities that l0ok like they were hot-glued together from other mismatched bits. Let’s look at Wawel Castle. It’s kind of noticeable from the outside but wait, it is all made clear when we approach the Cathedral inside.
Just so you know, this is where the dragon lives. And in case you forget, you are reminded everywhere you go within the castle walls. Here’s the 100% true story of the not-made-up Wawel dragon (name: Smok Wawelski).
The Wawel Dragon tale takes place in Kraków during the reign of King Krakus, the city’s legendary founder. Each day the evil dragon would beat a path of destruction across the countryside, killing the civilians, pillaging their homes, and devouring their livestock. In many versions of the story, the dragon especially enjoyed eating young maidens. Great warriors from near and far fought for the prize and failed. The cobbler’s apprentice (named Skuba) accepted the challenge. He stuffed a lamb with sulphur and set it outside the dragon’s cave. The dragon ate it and became so thirsty, it turned to the Vistula River and drank until it burst. The cobbler married the King’s daughter as promised, and founded the city of Kraków.
So dragon drank river and exploded. Fast forward to when they’re digging up the ground to make the castle and the diggers find a bunch of bones. They didn’t research what they are because OF COURSE they’re the dragon bones, right? I mean, duh. Turns out one is a mammoth bone, one is a blue whale rib (remember, there was a saltwater sea there millions of years ago) and one was a rhino skull. The bones are now hanging outside the church’s front door.
Here’s a map of the castle within the walls. Note the icon in the upper right corner. We’ll get back to that.
Like most castles within walls, it’s like a small city in there. There’s residences for the important people and the cathedral and the parliament maybe and I imagine the equivalent of a 7-11, all manner of buildings.
But the best part is the cathedral. I don’t know if you’re ready for the hodge-podge of periods. I certainly wasn’t.
ALL THE STYLES. ALL OF THEM. I loved it. I totally get if other people are bothered by it, but not me. I am firmly on Team Random Edifice. And I especially appreciated all the dragon elements that are incorporated into the structure itself. Like the gutters.
Bonus: The ones in the middle looked like skeksis (skeksii? skeksesses?).
There’s this carving near the door of a dragon.
Now, do you remember my sexy dead guys from Vienna? The skeletons propped up on their side? I saw that carved into the crypts in this church. I guess that’s an acceptable dead person pose in Eastern Europe. *The More You Know* ====?
And unsurprisingly I was delighted by the art nouveau gates outside the church with the chestnut motif. Big fan.
So, the actual dragon. Now, we all know he’s dead because he exploded but his cavern is still there and you can walk through it. At the end is a sculptural representation of Smok that supposedly shoots fire. I say supposedly because it was closed until spring. I couldn’t walk through the cavern and I only saw the sculpture from the top of the hill.
But I got to see a great view of the river and all the duckies and swannies swimming in the non-frozen part.
Unrelated to anything else: The ladies’ bathroom had a sign for breastfeeding but to me it looked like Dracula swishing his cape over his shoulder.
Here, I photoshopped it to make it clearer what I’m seeing.
Next entry: Schindler Factory.