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For over five hundred years, the country's rulers lived and governed on Wawel Hill , whose main buildings stand pretty much as they have done for centuries. Even after the capital moved to Warsaw, Polish monarchs continued to be buried in the cathedral, and it's at Wawel that many of the nation's venerated poets and heroes lie in state within a set of buildings that serve as a virtual textbook of Polish history. As such, Wawel represents a potent source of national and spiritual pride, and unusually in Krakow, there are always far greater crowds of Poles than foreigners looking around, many of them in large organized groups making a near-obligatory pilgrimage to the fount of national memory. In more recent times Wawel has been associated with an additional reason for making a pilgrimage here - the belief that one of the walls in the inner castle courtyard stands upon one of the world's main centres of spiritual energy. It became customary for cultists and followers of the chakra to come here and lean against the wall for a few minutes in order to recharge their spiritual batteries - until the area was roped off in 2001. A conservationist desire to protect the wall from the public was touted as the main reason for this, although there's no doubt that the cathedral hierarchy's distaste for New Age tourism also played a part. At the top of the cobbled path leading up the hill, a typically dramatic statue of Tadeusz Kosciuszko - a copy of the one destroyed by the Nazis - stands before the sixteenth-century Brama Wazow (Waza Gate). As you emerge, the cathedral rears up to the left, with the castle and its outbuildings and courtyards beyond. Directly ahead is a huge, open square, once the site of a Wawel township, but cleared by the Austrians in the early nineteenth century to create a parade ground. The cathedral and castle have separate official opening hours, but times do vary, so it's a good idea to check beforehand at one of the tourist offices or in the local listings newspapers and magazines. Keep in mind, too, that Wawel is extremely popular at all times of year - for any chance of avoiding the summer crowds, you'll need to get there well before opening time and queue up for your tickets. Tickets for the royal tombs and cathedral Treasury are bought near the cathedral entrance; while tickets for the castle chambers and exhibitions are available from a separate box office inside the castle inner courtyard. In each case, state clearly which bits of the complex you want to visit, and bear in mind that your ticket may well be stamped with a time-frame within which you will be allowed to enter the exhibition - a strategy designed to regulate the flow of visitors and prevent bottlenecks. English-speaking guides for small groups are available for hire from the PTTK office near the entrance to the complex; Orbis also arranges tours of the Stare Miasto, castle and cathedral, complete with tickets, as do a number of other local tourist offices. If there's one place where it would be worth coughing up for your own guide, this is it. With so much to see, and the crowds to navigate your way through, a reliable local hand can definitely ease the experience.
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