Europe Travel

Barbican, Krakow

The Barbican in Krakow is both gorgeous and it is located near the city centre, making it a great place to see. I’ve seen both the Barbican and the Defensive Walls with a joint ticket. There is another attraction which can be seen, the Celestat, but I didn’t visit it. Most likely I will do that at some point in the future.

Barbican

This is the Barbican. It had such an important role in Polish history. In its inner courtyard the monarch would be greeted by the elites of the city. Coronation processions and funeral processions of Polish monarchs passed by the Barbican. The last coronation ingress took place at the Barbican in January 1734, for king-elect August III of Poland.

The Barbican was built around 1498-1499, as King John Albert laid the construction for it. At that time Krakow was under threat from the Wallachians, Tatars, and Turks. Initially it was connected to the Florian Gate, which is shown further down in this post. The interior diameter of the building is just over 24 m while the exterior is over 30 m. The thickness of the walls vary from 45 cm to 3 m. It has an underground part, not open to tourists when I visited, a vaulted walkway. To further defend the structure, a moat surrounded it. Impressively, it was 6 m deep.

From the 16th century the building was used to house and protect the City Arsenal. Soon after, in 1587, Archduke Maximilian Habsburg did not manage to take Krakow, showing how good the construction was to repel attacks. In 1655 the defenders of the Barbican capitulated after a siege, as they lacked food and ammunition. In 1768 the Barbican protected its defenders against russian troops.

By 1806 the ways of war changed and the Barbican was not suitable as a fortress any more. Within two decades it was preserved and changed to a monument of art and culture, where the Polish history is celebrated.

Entrance to the Barbican

Interior of the Barbican

wall

View from the wall

Inside the wall

In the pictures above and below are the interior hallways between the walls. It is so big, I imagine plenty of troops could move easily to defend the building.

Inside the wall

View from the Barbican

Defensive Walls

This is an older picture of the Defensive Walls. I took it back in April, as in September was so busy with people that I didn’t have the chance of taking a good picture of the walls, without lots of people in it.

The fortifications date back to the 13th century. By the 17th century Krakow had 8 gates and 47 watchtowers. In the next 200 years the walls were less and less maintained as they were both expensive and didn’t defend the city against the threats it faced in the 19th century. Some were kept thanks to the involvement of prof. Feliks Radwanski and Jan Librowski. Now a few gates are still there and part of the walls.

The tower, near the Florian Gate, that you can see in the picture above is 34 m high. It has a Baroque bas-relief of St. Florian from 1882, see above, and in the passage is the altar of Our Lady of the Sands from 1835, see below.

altar

Defensive Walls

Square from the Defensive Walls

View of Krakow

Chapel

This is a chapel on the walls.

Altar

3 Comment

    1. Yes, it’s great that it was preserved. Krakow’s buildings were not as affected in WWII, so it survived that too.

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