Walk in Cracow: Market Square and Wawel Castle
Dragon's den, Cracow / Shutterstock
Dragon's Den
The cave in the limestone rock in the Wawel Hill, according to legend, was once inhabited by a Dragon. The total underground length is 270 m, with a maximum height of 10 m. Today, this tourist attraction has an 81-metre trail to visit, which includes a descent down a former Austrian well to three chambers separated by rock. The interior of the cave was formed between 12 and 1.6 million years ago, as a result of the rock dissolution processes (known as karst topography). The first traces of man come from the seventh century legend of the cave and the Wawel Dragon, first described by master Wincent known as Kadłubek in the Polish Chronicle (in the XII / XIII century). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a cave in the southern part, there was a famous inn described by foreign travellers and diplomats. When in the late eighteenth century new fortifications were built, the Dragon's Den was also reconstructed with some openings being bricked up and others being unveiled - among others windows with a staircase. An Overhaul was undertaken in 1918 by the architect Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz. On the wall near the exit of the cave stands a commemorative plaque, installed here in 1871, with the inscription of the Duke of Krakow, who is according to legend the founder of Krakow and the Wawel Dragon slayer. The sculpture commemorates the dragon beast, standing by the entrance to the mouth of the River Vistula - and it is the work of Krakow sculptor Bronislaw Chromy.