|
"The sanctuary of the nation ? cannot be entered without an inner trembling, without an awe, for here - as in few cathedrals of the world - is contained a vast greatness which speaks to us of the history of Poland, of all our past." So was the cathedral (Tues-Sat 9am-3pm, Sun noon-3pm) evoked by former Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow. As with Westminster Abbey or St Peter's, the moment you enter Wawel, you know you're in a place resonant to the core with national history. The first cathedral was built here around 1020 when King Boleslaw the Brave established the Krakow bishopric. Fragments of this building can still be seen in the west wing of the castle and the courtyard between the castle and the cathedral, while the St Leonard's crypt survives from a second Romanesque structure. The present brick and sandstone basilica is essentially Gothic, dating from the reigns of Wladyslaw the Short (1306-33) and Kazimierz the Great (1333-70), and adorned with a mass of side chapels, endowed by just about every subsequent Polish monarch and a fair number of aristocratic families too. As you enter the cathedral, look out for the bizarre collection of prehistoric animal bones , supposedly the remains of the Krak dragon, but actually a mammoth's shinbone, a whale's rib and the skull of a hairy rhinoceros, in a passage near the main entrance. As long as they remain, so legend maintains, the cathedral will too. The view down the nave of the cathedral, with its arched Gothic vaulting, is blocked by the Mauzoleum sw. Stanislawa , an overwrought seventeenth-century silver sarcophagus by the Gdansk smith Peter van der Rennen commemorating the bishop who is supposed to have been murdered by King Boleslaw at Skalka in Kazimierz in 1079 for his opposition to royal ambitions. The remains of the bishop-saint, who was canonized in 1253, were moved to Wawel the following year, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Below the shrine, on the right, is the Sarkofag Wladyslawa Jagiello (tomb of King Wladyslaw Jagiello), a beautiful marble creation from the mid-1400s with a fine Renaissance canopy added on by the king's grandson, Sigismund the Old (Zygmunt I Stary) a century later. Beyond stands the Baroque high altar and choir stalls. However, most people are drawn immediately to the outstanding array of side chapels which punctuate the entire length of the building.
Your Tip for Cathedral
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Cathedral - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Cathedral - visit the main Cathedral forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Cathedral webguide section below! Thanks.
| 
