Metravel city quest
City Krakow: free walking route “Podgórze Quest: Krak’s Mound and the Memory of the Ghetto” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 2 h. Quests and legends
Podgórze lies across the Vistula and, until 1915, was a separate town with its own town hall and marketplace. Above it rises a man-made hill — Krak’s Mound. According to legend, beneath it rests the mythical Prince Krak, founder of Kraków, who defeated the dragon that lived in a cave under the rock on the other bank of the river: the grateful townspeople heaped up the hill with their own hands, carrying earth in the sleeves of their clothes. Hence the spring festival of Rękawka — an ancient commemoration of ancestors at the foot of the mound.
But this side of the river holds another, heavy memory as well. In 1941 the Nazis herded Kraków’s Jews here and set up a ghetto; nearby stood the enamel factory of Oskar Schindler, who saved hundreds of lives. You will walk through the whole of Podgórze — from the square where an echo of those days remains to the legendary mound, from which all of Kraków can be seen.
Go slowly and attentively: this district speaks in details. At the tragic stops, keep your steps quieter — these are places of remembrance. The route ends with a climb, so put on comfortable shoes.
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
You are standing on the square that was the heart of the Kraków ghetto: it used to be called Plac Zgody — Concord Square. From here people were led off to deportation, from which they did not return.
On the corner of the square stands the pharmacy of Tadeusz Pankiewicz, the only Pole who was allowed to stay and work inside the ghetto. The pharmacy was founded by his father, long before the war.
A few minutes’ walk and you are at Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory on Lipowa Street. A German industrialist who began by profiting from the war, he ended up risking everything and pulled about 1200 of his Jewish workers out of the camps by writing them onto his famous “list”.
An optional stop — not a puzzle, but a recommendation. Near the route there is a place worth a small detour.
An optional stop — for pleasure, not for puzzles. The best discoveries on a journey often happen over a cup of coffee.
Step out onto the main square of old Podgórze — Rynek Podgórski. Above it soars the red-brick St.
Hidden on Lasota Hill is the tiny Romanesque St. Benedict’s Church — one of the smallest and oldest churches in Kraków, founded as early as around the year one thousand on the site of a stone rotunda.
Here is the main stop of the route — Krak’s Mound, a man-made hill 16 m high and 60 m across at the base, the oldest structure in Kraków. Who heaped it up and when, science does not know for certain: an Avar clasp from the 8th century was found inside.
As you descend, at the foot of the mound opens the abandoned limestone quarry of Liban, overgrown and wild. Here Spielberg built the set of the Płaszów camp for “Schindler’s List”; some of the prop “gravestones” from the film still lie among the rocks.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.
Traveller articles about this city will help round out the walk.