Krakow Poland July 8-9, 2004

A monk playing with the hand bells at our concert.

the oldest restaurnant in Krakow. Good food too!

St. Mary's church. Every hour a trumpet player plays from the tower on the left. It is a tradition left from maybe 900 years ago when the watchman warned the city of the attacking huns (? not sure who). He was then shot but the city was saved. There are 8 full time trumpet players who play in shifts of 24 hours. The interior of this church is the most beautiful I have ever seen.

photo taken from inside the krakow castle walls.

Krakow also has this fabulous old castle that is quite touristy but I didn't care because we don't have castles in the US. We had a tour guide who told us how Krakow was founded and why there is a dragon statue out in front of the castle and dragons all over the arcitecture such as this embelish on the interior of the castle below. When people first moved to the area there was a dragon who was always hungry but didn't seem to get in the way so more and more people moved tthere...but then the dragon noticed that too many people were coming and he got annoyed. After all this was his place to live and they were too noisy! He started eating the people. Of course the people didn't like that but they didn't know what to do. Finally there was this guy named Krakow who decided that someone had to do something. So he stuffed a sheep skin with sulfer and set it outside his cave. The

dragon ate it!!! But oh no instead of killing the dragon, now he blows fire!!! But not to worry, because of the fire in the dragon's belly he was very thirsty so he drank some water, and drank  more and more. He drank so much water that he exploaded (and died)!!! Everyone was so happy they named the town after Krakow and made him the first ruler.

Page 2 of Krakow...index of trip...home page