Krakow Dragon, underground museums, and a Jewish cemetery

We miss the Wroclow dwarf statues, but Krakow has its own “mascot,” the Krakow Dragon. Whereas the history of the dwarfs is only 40 years old, the Krakow Dragon is the stuff of legends. When we walked around Krakow’s castle, we saw signs for the “Dragon’s Lair,” but the upper entrance was closed for reconstruction. Dragon statues and stuffed dragons are sold in town. So, today, we went in search of the Krakow Dragon, and we found him!

The 13th century legend is that a dragon plagued the City of Krakow, demanding a weekly ration of three cows. If he didn’t get cows, he would eat people. One version of the legend says the king’s sons came up with the idea to kill the dragon, other versions say it was the king, and one version says it was a cobbler who came up with the idea. The scheme was to stuff a sheep skin with smoldering sulfur and give it to the dragon to eat. The dragon ate it and died breathing fire just before death. The dragon’s home was the cave below the castle next to the Vistula River. Although it wasn’t open, we did see the entrance of the Dragon’s Lair near the fire-breathing dragon. 

Our first underground tour was Wednesday to the Wielczka Salt Mines, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Steps, lots of steps, took us down the initial 90 meters underground into the first level of the mine. Walking thru the passages, we saw secondary salt on the passage walls where salt water seeped out, evaporated and left a bloom of salt.

The tour only went along 2 km of the 287 km of passages and down 135 meters with the mine’s final depth being 327 meters deep. Archeological records show that as early as 10,000 BC settlers were using salt springs in the area to get salt to preserve food. When the springs went dry, they began digging. The mines were first started in the 13th century. Today’s mines have dioramas built into the passageways, with figures made of salt.

Displays also showed how salt was mined over the centuries, with examples of the cylinders of salt that were removed by human and horse labor and mechanical means.

Huge chambers, once the salt was removed, were decorated over the years.

One method of removing salt was piping out the saline pools.

The passages were easy to walk and securely braced. Visitors have been coming into the mine since the 1700s. The mine stopped industrial production in 1996 because of falling salt prices and mine flooding problems. It is now preserved for tours and small commercial production.

Today, we went to our second underground museum, the Rynek Museum. It is under the Old Town market square. About 25 years ago, the city was reworking the area and dug a bit deeper than usual and came across ruins and artifacts of the ancient city. Archeologists and preservationists created the museum, just 4 meters underground, where the old walls from the 14th century can be seen.

Artifacts such as coins and tools were on display.

Prior to being the city site, this spot was a cemetery. Archeologists dug below the city walls and found graves from the 11th century.

This is a scene today directly above the Rynk museum. Plenty of pigeons on the Market Square!

Yesterday morning, we walked thru a nearby Jewish cemetery. During WWII, the Nazis uprooted the headstones and used them to make a road in a nearby concentration camp. After the war, the remaining Jews in Krakow brought the headstones back and used them for a memorial.

The cemetery itself was beautiful, with ivy overgrowing the headstones.

We leave Krakow tomorrow and we will miss the staff at our hotel, Hotel Wielopole. Karolina, one of the desk clerks, is an English major in college. Over the past five days, we’ve had delightful conversations with her. Another friendly clerk is Ana. Actually, they’ve all been friendly! Magdelina, the hotel manager, has done a great job hiring friendly staff, all college students. We gave Karolina a Texas key chain to remember us. When we came back from dinner, we found a Krakow dragon key chain with a thank you from Karolina and cherry vodka in our room!

We went out another time and upon our return, Karolina presented us with two slices of Krakow poppy seed cake!

We will miss this hotel; it has been one of our favorites during our travels.