Sunday, May 18, 2008

Tour of Krakow

Today we went on a walking tour of some parts of Krakow.

We started out by walking through park that surrounds the entire Old Town. The park is very nice. There are trees and grass, and benches. We arrived on Saturday and the park was filled with locals. Today we walked through the parks to Wawel Hill, the part of the city located on the Vistula River.

We started on Wawel Hill by seeing the statue of Smok the Dragon. According to legend a seven-headed dragon lived in a cave and was eating the beautiful women of the town. To get rid of the dragon, they put a sheep filled with sulfur and the dragon came out and ate the sheep. Due to the sulfur his insides because very hot and he drank and drank out of the Vistula River, and drank until he exploded. The statue was erected in his honor, and the dragon breathes fire!! (Very cool!)

After the dragon we went through the Wawel (pronounced vavel) Castle. This castle was built as a royal residence, until the capital was later moved to Warsaw. The castle was very nice and the walls are covered with tapastries which were earlier part of a collection of more than 300.

Following the Castle we went to the Cathedral. The Cathedral was where the kings, poets, and national heros were buried. We learned a lot about each of the kings and heros today. The catacombs were very nicely decorated for the royalty. We also got to go into the crypt of the castle were there are many catacombs.

We then headed to St. Mary's Church where we got to see the famous High Altar. It is the largest wooden Gothic high altar in Europe. It was very impressive and very bright. The Poles outsmarted the invaders (many of them) and took many of the art peices (from the Castle and Church) and moved them to other counties.

The tour was very fun, and our tour guide was very proud of Krakow and made some very comical remarks. Krakow is a very nice city with lots to discover!

-Over and Out
Jeremy

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