Kraków - Katedra Wawelska

A legend attributes Kraków's founding to the mythical ruler Krakus, who built it above a cave occupied by a dragon, Smok Wawelski. The first written record dates to 965, when Kraków was described as a notable commercial center captured by a Bohemian duke Boleslaus I in 955. The first ruler of Poland, Mieszko I, took Kraków from the Bohemians.

In 1038, Kraków became the seat of the Polish government. By the end of the 10th century, the city was a center of trade. Brick buildings were constructed, including the Royal Wawel Castle. The city was sacked and burned during the Mongol invasion of 1241. It was rebuilt and incorporated in 1257 by Bolesław V the Chaste who introduced city rights. In 1259, the city was again ravaged by the Mongols. The third attack in 1287 was repelled thanks in part to the newly built fortifications.

The city rose to prominence in 1364, when Casimir III founded the University of Kraków, the second oldest university in central Europe. But after Casimir´s death in 1370 the campus did not get completed.

As the capital of the Kingdom of Poland and a member of the Hanseatic League, the city attracted craftsmen from abroad, guilds as science and the arts began to flourish. The 15th and 16th centuries are known as Poland's "Złoty Wiek" (Golden Age).

After childless King Sigismund II had died in 1572, the Polish throne passed to Henry III of France and then to other foreign-based rulers in rapid succession, causing a decline in the city's importance that was worsened by pillaging during the Swedish invasion and by an outbreak of bubonic plague that left 20,000 of the city's residents dead. In 1596, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa moved the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from Kraków to Warsaw.
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The Wawel Hill has been the seat of secular and ecclesiastical power since the early Middle Ages. Mieszko I the first historical ruler and creator of the Polish state, chose the hill as the site of one of his residences. His baptism in 966 brought Poland into the orbit of Western culture.

The Wawel Cathedral (officialy "Bazylika archikatedralna św. Stanisława i św. Wacława w Krakowie") is for about 1000 years part of the Wawel Castle Complex. The current Gothic cathedral is the third edifice on this site, the Cathedral of St. Wenceslas from 1020 was destroyed in 1038 by the Czech prince Břetislav, the Romanesque cathedral, consecrated in 1142, with the tomb of the holy Stanislaus, burnt down in 1305.

A few years later the construction of a Gothic cathedral, started. This was completed in 1346. Since Krakow was Poland's capital until 1609 and the royal castle stood on Wawel Hill, the cathedral also served as the court church, and Poland's kings were buried in the crypt.

The Sigismund Bell Tower, built in the second half of the 14th century as part of the fortifications, houses the most venerable bell in Poland, called "Sigismundus". Poland's holy queen Jadwiga (Hedwig of Poland) was buried in the cathedral in 1399.

After the Middle Ages, several chapels were added to the cathedral. There are examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Romanesque, Baroque, Neoclassical, and Neogothic elements in the Cathedral's façade and interior.

The Holy Cross Chapel was built as a mausoleum for Casimir IV the Jagiellonian and his wife Elizabeth Rakuszanka.

There is also this massive tomb of Bishop Kajetan Sołtyk (+1788), which looks quite ostentatious next to the tomb of Casimir.