Wawel Restored
If you've got a soft-spot for nostalgia then don't miss the Royal Castle's Spring exhibition, which celebrates the centenary of the restoration of this national shrine.
The exhibition would be worth it alone for the glorious Fotoplastikon - a marvellous machine first pioneered in Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. A classic fairground attraction of that era, the Fotoplastikon is an elegant circular machine that allows a dozen or so viewers to perch on stools and peer through viewing holes at a series of revolving images. Needless to say we spent an hour or so gallantly trying to find an English name for such a contraption, but the only info we could glean was that the hapless Fotoplastikon was not around long before it had its thunder stolen by the Lumiere brothers and their clever clogs moving image Cinematographe (1895).
The kindly man who is looking after the exhibition told us that this particular Fotoplastikon was still open for business on Cracow's ul. Szpitalna right up until the 1970s. It was originally made in Lwow (today Lviv) Cracow's grander brother that was once the capital of Habsburg Galicia. In this case the images are of Wawel Hill a hundred years ago, and if you're coming with kids, the trusty machine would be a good place to plant them while you check out the rest of the show.
It's a shame that there are no English tags, but most of the exhibits are fairly self-explanatory. There's a fantastic model of Wawel Hill during its heyday, and plenty of before-and-after shots detailing just how decrepit things had become in the late nineteenth century.
At that time, Poland was under partition, and the Austrians turned the castle into a military barracks. However, towards the end of Habsburg rule, the Austrians gave the Poles autonomy. It was a major breakthrough, especially as the Russians and Prussians were becoming increasingly repressive in their chunks of the dismembered country.
As you wander about the exhibits you can look out through the expansive windows onto the splendid results of the restoration itself, as the exhibition halls look directly onto the main courtyard of the castle. Also worth seeing is the video projection which shows how Wawel would have looked if all the projects that were put forward were realized. The grandest of these was that of the artist Stanislaws Wyspianski, one of Cracow's favourite sons. It was exactly a hundred years ago that major restoration projects were finally undertaken, and this exhibition is a fine tribute to the project. All in all it's a well worth dropping by if you're heading up to Wawel Hill.