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Krakow, saved by a
dragon |
Wawel Castle |
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©
By ROBERT W. BONE |
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"Hey,
it's a free country!" the man said.
We
were on our way back to Krakow,
Poland, after tramping around the
countryside in jeans and sweat
shirts, and we were going to be late
for our dinner reservation.
Our
companion, Mariusz Moryl, a friend
who grew up in Poland but who has
been living in the United States for
several years, suggested we go
straight to the restaurant and not
bother to change clothes.
"Will
they let us in looking like this?" I
asked. "Why not?" Mariusz replied,
following it with the "free country"
explanation.
Poland was the first of the former
Soviet bloc countries to reject
communism. But despite the early
success of Solidarity and the
subsequent fall of the
Russian-dominated government, Polish
cities have not attracted the crowds
of tourists who invade neighboring
capitals such as Prague and
Budapest.
This
is partly because Warsaw, Poland's
capital, was completely destroyed in
World War II. The city has been
rebuilt, of course, including a
loving and amazingly accurate
restoration of Warsaw's Old Town.
But
it is in Krakow, the ancient royal
capital, where the past is still
present. Explosives planted by
hastily retreating Nazi armies in
1945 luckily were never detonated,
and architectural treasures such as
11th-century Wawel (pronounced "VAH-vel")
Castle, residence of the former
kings, would be familiar to these
monarchs if they were to return
today.
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Bass fiddle player,
his instrument on his back,
traverses Krakow's main
square on his way to a gig.
Photos by Robert W. Bone |
Beginning in medieval times, Wawel
Castle was the home of a colorful
series of rulers. One of these
kings, Henry de Volois, decided he
no longer wanted to rule Poland. He
escaped out of the country in the
middle of the night and turned up as
the king of France. Another Polish
ruler, Stanislaus Augustus
Poniatowski, was apparently a
desirable hunk from a queen's point
of view. King Stanislaus was
captured by Catherine the Great and
taken home to Russia as her personal
boy toy.
Portraits of these and other former
residents of noble birth can be seen
on guided tours of Wawel Castle.
Many of their remains are entombed
in the basement of the adjacent
cathedral.
Castle and cathedral were built on
top of the sacred Wawel Hill, which
contains a deep cave. The cavern was
once believed to be the lair of the
fierce Wawel Dragon, a legend
perpetuated by the collection of
ancient and mysterious bones found
there. Sometime after the cathedral
was built early in the last
millennium, these physical remains
were gathered up and suspended
rather casually near the main
entrance. It was said that as long
as they continued to hang there, the
city, the castle, and the cathedral
would stand.
That
portion of the story is apparently
correct. Despite Poland's tumultuous
history, the city remains and the
bones still dangle at the door, even
though some spoilsport archaeologist
declared in the 1920s that the bones
were not from a dragon, but parts of
three specific animals - a whale, a
woolly mammoth, and a rhinoceros.
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Mysterious "dragon" bones
have been hanging at the
cathedral's doors for
several centuries as a sort
of Medieval good luck charm. |
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The
bones are consistent with scientific
opinion that in the Jurassic age,
Poland was partly covered by a large
inland sea. Jewelry made from Polish
amber, a legacy of those times, is a
popular tourist buy.
Some
of the most valuable of this amber
contains an insect or two. (This was
the inspiration for the novel and
film, "Jurassic Park," in which
creatures were cloned from dinosaur
blood devoured by ancient mosquitoes
preserved in amber.) Another result
of the ancient sea is a huge deposit
of underground salt not far from
Krakow. Vast salt mines were
established under the village of
Wieliczka, which have been proudly
worked by the villagers for the past
700 years. The extensive complex has
also served as a tourist attraction
for at least two centuries. During
World War II, one of the underground
chambers was used as a
bomb-sheltered factory to make
airplane parts.
There
are tunnels filled with various
statues and other incongruities made
out of salt, along with
demonstrations of old mining
techniques, including elevators for
the miners dating centuries before
Otis Elevators. Within older parts
of the mine, great halls and chapels
are lit by crystal chandeliers - the
crystal on these fixtures, of
course, being salt crystals.
The
mine tour is mainly a walking one
today, although there are some old
tracks and ore cars around,
reminiscent of those runaway carts
ridden by Indiana Jones in the
Temple of Doom. In times past, royal
visitors were indeed taken through
the mines in open, richly
upholstered railroad carriages.
These luxurious vehicles are also
preserved and on exhibit in the
mines today.
Children and others of us with
childlike impulses taking the tour
today are warned by signs: "Don't
lick the walls." But you can buy
several souvenirs made out of salt
or salt crystals. (Thankfully there
is no regulation prohibiting taking
the guides' stories with a grain of
the stuff, or if you accidentally do
scrape some off the walls, throwing
a little of it over your shoulder
just to make sure you'll find your
way out again!) Also within striking
distance of Krakow are the preserved
portions of the World War II
concentration and death camps of
Auschwitz and Birkenau, both
reachable on frequent tours leaving
from the city. The film,
"Schindler's List," was made there
and in several locations in Krakow.
Another bus ride out of Krakow leads
to the Tatra Mountains, the highest
part of the Carpathian range, and
thence to Zakopane, the country's
winter sports capital. Some Poles
would like Zakopane to be the site
of a future winter Olympics, a
highly controversial proposal in a
nation of environmentalists. About
28 percent of Poland consists of
forests, and the strong
environmental movement in the
country opposes cutting the swaths
of old-growth forest that would be
necessary to construct facilities
suitable for the Olympics.
Meanwhile, Zakopane can be enjoyed
not only for its ski slopes but
also, in warmer months, for its bars
and restaurants. Several of these
are also known for rollicking folk
songs and evenings of drinking and
frenetic dancing. (A popular
concoction: Highland outlaw tea, a
hot drink consisting of Vodka with
just a smidgen of tea.) Just as in
areas of Polish concentration in the
United States, the polka is a
popular dance. But foreigners are
often surprised to learn that only
its name is Polish. Poles insist the
polka was actually invented across
the border in what is now the Czech
Republic. The authentic Polish dance
is the lively mazurka.
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