wawel castle armoury and krakow national museum

iod1889 · 20th September 2017, 08:17 PM

Hello Silber,

I went to Krakow on holidays last year and visited parts of the castle. I found it was part Disneyland, part historical site. The Disneyland impression comes from the way they manage the myriad tourists who flock to the castle each day.

As I remember, there were two places to buy tickets (this was during the month of August), each had a big screen showing the number of tickets remaining per part of the castle. You could see the number of available places going down at an alarming rate. All in all, a big surprise as to the mass of tourists, but a clear and well organized way to deal with it.

I can imagine locals avoid the holiday period to visit !

The armory was full of wonderful objects (I cannot judge quality at a glance but I took special notice of some very nice smallswords. It also included a few very, very, ornate ceremonial swords and a huge number of two-handed swords along with crossbows, cannon, etc .)

I was, like you, frustrated by the ban on photos, especially as they propose a beautiful book on the pole arms in their collection, but nothing on swords !! Why not allow photos without flash and contend with people who cannot understand simple rules ?

I must say I was interested enough that I would have stayed longer in the armory, but had to follow the rest of the family

Sorry about the layman quality of this post, but I haven't reached the level of expertise of people on this forum yet. Just my humble opinion on the subject. For all I know, most pieces could have been fake, but I doubt it

Benoit

20th September 2017, 08:17 PM	#4
iod1889 Member Join Date: Sep 2017 Posts: 4	Hello Silber, I went to Krakow on holidays last year and visited parts of the castle. I found it was part Disneyland, part historical site. The Disneyland impression comes from the way they manage the myriad tourists who flock to the castle each day. As I remember, there were two places to buy tickets (this was during the month of August), each had a big screen showing the number of tickets remaining per part of the castle. You could see the number of available places going down at an alarming rate. All in all, a big surprise as to the mass of tourists, but a clear and well organized way to deal with it. I can imagine locals avoid the holiday period to visit ! The armory was full of wonderful objects (I cannot judge quality at a glance but I took special notice of some very nice smallswords. It also included a few very, very, ornate ceremonial swords and a huge number of two-handed swords along with crossbows, cannon, etc .) I was, like you, frustrated by the ban on photos, especially as they propose a beautiful book on the pole arms in their collection, but nothing on swords !! Why not allow photos without flash and contend with people who cannot understand simple rules ? I must say I was interested enough that I would have stayed longer in the armory, but had to follow the rest of the family Sorry about the layman quality of this post, but I haven't reached the level of expertise of people on this forum yet. Just my humble opinion on the subject. For all I know, most pieces could have been fake, but I doubt it Benoit