The Royal Way and Kosher rules

Thursday 

Back to fun tours! 

We started off the day by taking a two hour tour of the Royal Castle of Krakow. It sits atop a hill near the middle of the city with amazing views of it and the surrounding river. 

Most of the castle interior had actually been destroyed during a fire way back when. So, most of the furniture inside was placed there in hopes of providing an image. And parts of the reconstructed walls were never reprinted and as such were plain white. 

Original Ceiling and border

Reconstructed Office with no original embellishments

Luckily, only some portions of the Palace were lost in the fire. The ones that remained are breathtaking. In one section of the palace walls were draped with detailed leather instead of painted or draped with carpets. Typically tapestries were employed as they kept in heat. But these intricate leather walls had gold and other dyes pounded into them to provide not only warmth but beauty. 

After we finished touring the Palace we were taken underneath to view the armory. This collection included many works of metal, beyond even weaponry. However, the sword, gun, and cannon collection was quite extensive and impressive.

The next part of our tour of The Royal Way was to the Cathedral. A rather large and gorgeous place. It was full of marble and gold everywhere. 

Outside the Cathedral hung three large bones. Of which were according to legend supposed to part of a dragon. There is a tale told in Krakow of the dragon that used to live in the hill underneath which the Wawel Castle stood. This dragon was eating all the herds and virgins within the city. Due to this the king decided that whoever could kill the Dragon would get a grand reward and of course get to marry his daughter, the princess. Knight after knight came to the king in hopes of killing the dragon and knight after knight was slain. The story continues until one day a simple shoe cobbler approaches the king asking if he could try his hand at killing the dragon and claiming the reward. The King in concern informs the man that he is rather small and untrained in the ways of knighthood, how could he possibly manage to kill a dragon. The cobbler replies that he will outsmart the dragon and the king decides to let him try his hand. The next day the cobbler fills a sheep with sulfur and sets it outside of the dragons cave as to entice him to eat it. Because as we all know sheep are a dragons favorite meal. The dragon wakes up and consumes the sheep. But as the sheep was full with sulfur the dragon's stomach begins to bubble and burn. The dragon rushes to the lake and drinks and drinks, all day long until he is big and round like a balloon. At this moment the Cobbler sneaks up behind the dragon and pops him with a sword. The dragon explodes and the kingdom is saved. Thus, in Krakow is considered lucky to own a small statue of the dragon that was defeated.

The. End.

...But not really. Because we had to continue our day. We spent our afternoon in the Jewish quarter of the city. This section of the city is considerably smaller and much more run down. But it still has it's little quarks. Very few Jews are left in Krakow and this leads to not being able to take care of the section as much as would be desired.

While in the Jewish quarter we toured a synagogue and its attached cemetery. This arrangement is very typical for a christian church but normally a Jewish cemetery is not located near the synagogue, making this one unique.

The Jewish religion typically has very strict rules regarding the location and treatment of their cemeteries. They typically must in a high location and near a water source, and much more regulations that I do not know of. The tradition of leaving flowers at a grave is also only practiced by the Christian faith. In Jewish cemeteries to honor the dead one is supposed to leave rocks on the graves. This tradition dates back to the crossing of the desert. When people died during this extensive crossing they were given a burial and their graves were marked with rocks. And as no flowers grow in the desert they could not place these plants on top of the graves.