Krakow the land of legends

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My parents moved to Krakow Poland a little over a year ago. They live next to the Castle and my Dad works in the mall. Krakow was named after a Dragon that lived in a cave under the castle. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

The dragon “Smok” had a large diet of cattle and virgins and the king was tired of giving up so much beef and pretty young ladies. He setup a competition for any man that could kill the dragon would get his daughter’s hand in marriage. Many knights and brave warriors tried but they were all killed. A humble shoemaker has some brains and he filled a lamb with salt and sulfur and left it in front of the dragon’s lair. Smok ate it up in one gulp and began to feel very thirsty, lucky the river is just steps away from his cave so he began to drink and drink. His belly began to swell and swell until…. POP! The dragon was defeated and the shoemaker got his new wife. But of course King Krak was accredited with the kill and so the city was named after him.

We toured the Castle and “Old Town” and learned all about the University of Poland. There is a church in the town square, which is the largest mid-evil square in Europe, which has one tower taller than the other. The legend goes that two brothers were competing to make their tower taller. In the end one tower was much taller than the other. So the losing brother was so jealous that he killed his brother with a dagger. Soon he felt so bad about murdering his brother he hid the dagger in the market place, still there today, and jumped to his death of the taller tower.

Krakow has a Jewish quarter that is interesting to walk through but is sad to know that after WWII only 5% survived. Their Synagogues where still there but only one is currently used. Before the war 65,000 Jews lived there and now only 188 still live and worship there. It is hard to understand Poland’s plight over the years, it seems like everybody has conquered or just taken parts of Poland and the poles have never really had a say.

Krakow has almost 200,000 college students so walking around you see plenty of youngsters and some of the strangest fashions I have ever seen. Poland has only been free from Communism for about 20 years so they get really excited about things we think is old news. I didn’t realize that Krakow is such a large tourist town but it has been really nice to sit in the square at night and people watch after a delicious dinner and a cold beer, no wine for a while!

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Photos

Castle
you can tell each part was built in a different era by a different person

Dragon Bones
it's believed that if those bones fall the world will fall apart

touching for love and luck
if you touch this bell with your left hand you will have good luck in life and in love!!

under the golden lion
before numbers people would put animals above there doors and that is how you could tell who lived there

stain glass
guess when it was made.... 1900