Wawel Royal Castle - Cracow, Poland
Posted by: HanSohn
N 50° 03.222 E 019° 56.200
34U E 423879 N 5545142
Sitting above the city of Cracow, this beautiful castle begs to be explored!
Waymark Code: WM20M
Location: Małopolskie, Poland
Date Posted: 09/28/2005
Views: 114
From the dawn of Polish history Wawel Hill in Cracow was a centre of secular and ecclesiastical power. The establishment in 1000 of the bishopric of Cracow was soon followed by the construction on Wawel of the first cathedral. The Wawel castle functioned as the residence of the Polish rulers from the mid-11th to the early 17th century. The present structure incorporates Romanesque fragments and considerable Gothic parts, but it acquired its present form mainly in the period c. 1504-1535, during the reign of the kings Alexander (1501-1506) and Sigismund I the Old (1506-1548) of the Jagiellonian dynasty.