Royal Castle - Wawel
Medieval Krakow

Medieval Krakow - Royal Castle, Old Town with defensive walls, gates and towers even today makes great impression. Add to that historical facts mixed with photos and you have an amazing city tour for everyone…

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Royal Castle - Krakow
     Situated on the Wawel Hill on the banks of the Vistula river, the Royal Castle for long dominated not only the city of Krakow.

For centuries it was the center of the very powerful kingdom of Poland. But at the end of XVI century the capital was moved to Warsaw and Krakow lost major part of its importance.

Fortunately these days the Royal Castle, due to its magnificent architecture, richness of displayed art, furniture and armor re-gained its position as one of most visited places in Poland.

Unfortunately the interior of the castle cannot be photographed so this time you may have to believe my words or simply jump on the plane :-).

As the bonus - you may have a chance to see (the summer time only) an opera performance in the shade of old castle walls....

The Royal Castle Wawel and its defensive walls and towers.
On the right visible the Royal Cathedral.

Royal Castle Wawel. On the 2nd picture from the left visible the Vistula River.

Old Town Fortifications

     Let's continue the trip to the past. This time it will be the tour of the old city fortifications.
The following pictures show the only fragment of the old Krakow's impressive defensive system that survived the time and human "miss-deeds"....

The two pictures from the left show the old city defensive walls and the Tower of Furriers with St. Florian Gate, the two on the right show the tower of Haberdashers

Three pictures from the left: St. Florian Gate and Tower of Furriers. The zoom shows St. Florian "ready" to defend Krakow (2nd picture) and gate details (3rd picture). The 4th picture shows the tower of Joiners

St. Florian Gate.

Krakow: 1-2: Photos of Krakow's old town defensive walls with towers. 3-4: Joiners Tower.
5: View along the porch on the wall between the Furriers and Haberdashers towers

     St. Florian Gate was built at the end of 13th century. Initially erected of broken limestone with a square footprint, later was overbuilt with a stone and gothic brick and equipped with a porch supported by stone consoles.

In 1658 the tower was topped with the baroque-style dome.

The gate, closed for the night by the portcullis was connected through the elongated neck with the Barbakan (seen on the 3rd picture through the gate) .

According to the inspection notes from 1626, the equipment of St. Florian Gate included: 4 small falconets, 2 canons, 12 muskets, 9 half-harquebuses, 10 harquebuses etc…

The gate was defended by furriers.


To continue the visit to the old royal Krakow click: Krakow- Barbakan Stronghold 

If you prefer to see amazing Orava Castle in Northern Slovakia then click:  Orava Castle

If you enjoyed this visit, then please share your experience with friends :-)

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