HERITAGE

Krakow reflects best the mul­ti­cul­tur­al her­itage and rich his­to­ry of Poland. The name of the town (spelled with K) relates to its loca­tion in 1257 based on the Ger­man Magde­burg Law. The most famous afflu­ent patrons of the St. Mary’s Basil­i­ca were Ital­ian (the Mon­telupi and Cel­lari fam­i­lies), and the main altar there was designed by Veit Stoss, a Ger­man from Nurem­berg. Francesco Fiorenti­no from Italy built the roy­al cas­tle here, and one of most famous cas­tle inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tors was Albrecht Durer’s younger broth­er, Hans. The most famous Krakow stu­dent was Nico­laus Coper­ni­cus, but in his times the largest eth­nic groups of stu­dents were Hun­gar­i­ans and Czechs. One of the Krakow sym­bols is Lajkonik, a Tatar fig­ure rid­ing a small pony. It dates back to the XIII cen­tu­ry when Krakow was invad­ed by the Tatars. The first pres­i­dent of Krakow was Joseph Dietl, an Aus­tri­an, who intro­duced a prece­dent of nom­i­nat­ing a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Krakow Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty as one of his deputies. For a Sun­day din­ner in Krakow you will get a Wiener Schnitzel and a chick­en soup cooked with the use of „włoszczyz­na” (a Pol­ish name, which actu­al­ly means “Ital­ian stuff”), the veg­eta­bles brought to Poland in the XVI cen­tu­ry by the most famous Pol­ish Queen – Bona Sforza, an Ital­ian. The Krakow pub­lic trans­port (horse dri­ven trams), the first fire brigade and the first brass band were estab­lished on request of an Emper­or Franz Joseph. We also bor­rowed from the Aus­tri­an tra­di­tion our Christ­mas cus­toms. Please, con­tact us for details!

Poland is deeply root­ed in the Euro­pean Roman-catholic cul­ture. A church stands at every street cor­ner in Krakow and streets here are filled with walk­ing nuns, priests and monks in tra­di­tion­al habits. You will also find here a lot of places relat­ed to John Paul II. This is a typ­i­cal impres­sion that every tourist who vis­its Poland for the first time will express. The sacral archi­tec­ture here is extreme­ly var­ied and tes­ti­fies to the remark­able wealth of the roy­al fam­i­ly, the nobil­i­ty and founders of numer­ous abbeys, monas­ter­ies and con­vents. The list includes the Cis­ter­cian Abbey in Nowa Huta, the Bene­dic­tine Abbey in Tyniec, and the Church­es of St. Bernadine’s, Domini­can, Fran­cis­can, Jesuit and St. Clare’s Orders. Of course, the most impor­tant is St. Mary’s Basil­i­ca in the Main Square, with the largest goth­ic altar from the XV cen­tu­ry and carved by Veit Stoss from Nurem­berg.  The wood­en archi­tec­ture is typ­i­cal for the Pol­ish coun­try­side and mas­tered by the Pol­ish Gorals. The dec­o­ra­tions that can be found in these build­ings are regard­ed as the best exam­ples of the Pol­ish prim­i­tive and folk art, main­ly made by ama­teur artists, and is admired for its rich and atten­tive­ness to the spir­i­tu­al aspects of reli­gious life. The Less­er Poland region prides itself with the longest tourist trail of the wood­en archi­tec­ture in Europe. Please, con­tact us for details!

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One of the most impor­tant peri­ods of the Pol­ish con­tem­po­rary his­to­ry belongs to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty move­ment and Lech Wałęsa, the Nobel Peace Prize win­ner. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty logo is one of the most rec­og­niz­able trade marks in today’s world, and for the pro­mo­tion of which not a sin­gle pen­ny was spent. That peri­od in Krakow is strict­ly relat­ed to one of its liv­ing quar­ters, i.e. Nowa Huta, which is regard­ed nowa­days as one of the most sig­nif­i­cant exam­ples of social real­ism archi­tec­ture. Nowa Huta is a quite remark­able phe­nom­e­non and one of the ris­ing stars among the great­est Krakow tourist attrac­tions. It was built as a mod­el town for the work­ing class, most­ly employed at the Lenin Steel­works. In the 1980s the place had become the place of a large-scale, mass strikes and protests against the com­mu­nist rules in Poland. Nowa Huta fas­ci­nates the vis­i­tors with its extra­or­di­nary his­to­ry, unmatched urban design solu­tions and beau­ti­ful sacral archi­tec­ture which includes, among oth­ers, the Cis­ter­cian Abbey dat­ing back to 1222, the XVI cen­tu­ry wood­en church of St. Bartolommeo’s and the Our Lord’s Ark – a boat-shaped church built under the patron­age of Karol Car­di­nal Woj­tyła, the future Pope John Paul II. A vis­it to Nowa Huta will take you com­plete­ly by sur­prise and will change your per­cep­tion of the com­mu­nist era for ever. Please, con­tact us for details!

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The most renowned res­i­den­cy in Poland is the Roy­al Cas­tle in Krakow, designed and built in the XVI cen­tu­ry by Ital­ians as a com­mis­sion from the Pol­ish roy­al fam­i­ly. The Pol­ish nobil­i­ty and gen­try imi­tat­ed the design of this struc­ture while build­ing their res­i­den­cies and at the same time fol­low­ing the lat­est trends in the Euro­pean archi­tec­ture of that time; hence the pop­u­lar name of the “Lit­tle Wawel” used by the his­to­ri­ans in ref­er­ence to the Cas­tles in Pieskowa Skała or Niepołomice, the style and form of which are con­fus­ing­ly sim­i­lar to the roy­al res­i­dence. Approx­i­mate­ly 200 cas­tles and fortress­es (well pre­served or in total ruins) are scat­tered across the Less­er Poland and Sile­sia regions. The best know exam­ples include the medieval cas­tles along the Trail of the Eagles’ Nests and the res­i­den­cies reclaimed by the legit­i­mate own­ers after the peri­od of com­mu­nism and then restored to their ini­tial grand­ness. Such exam­ples include the Cas­tle in Wiśnicz, the Palace in Mosz­na (Sile­sia), or the Manor House in Sier­akow, not far away from Krakow. Please, con­tact us for details!