St. Mary's Church in Krakow

I have 15 minutes to tell you something interesting about something interesting, so here it goes.  Off to marveling more on the wondrous city of Krakow, Poland.

In the main square of Krakow, there is a lovely church called St. Mary's that is unmistakeably odd.  Its towers are different heights. I kid you not.  The story behind this is as follows:

This is the second church to stand on this site.  The first met a rather tragic and untimely end when the Tartars took a jaunt through Poland in the 1200s.  (Poland has an unfortunate geographical location regarding other aggressive countries/powers and is also fairly flat.  The end result is that the Poles have had lots of turmoil throughout the years, which they have used to turn into many opportunities for heroism.)  The present church was finished in 1397, but because it was started before the town plan was made it stands in an endearingly askew position in relation to the square.  The legend behind the different tower heights is that they were being added onto the church in the 15th century by two brothers.  One grew jealous of the other's tower and killed him.  The town found out what had happened, put the vicious brother to death, and made the victim's tower quite noticeably higher.

The inside of the church was described to me as a jewel box for God, which seems a decent but inadequate description for how beautiful it is.  The colors are beautiful - lots of blue and red and gold - and there is a truly fabulous altar piece by a man named Veit Stoss.  When watching The Rape of Europa, one of my many documentaries from Netflix - yes, I am truly a dork, I admit it - this altar piece was one of the highlights mentioned.  Apparently the Poles feared (with good reason) that Nazi art-lovers would take their beloved altar piece away.  They took the whole thing apart and gave the different pieces and figures to people to hide.  Some of them were even buried or put in stables.  After the war was over, the altar was re-constructed and hence it is there intact today.

One last interesting tidbit about St. Mary's.  Every hour on the hour, a trumpet blows part of a signal.  This call is known as the Hejnał mariacki and is played from the top of the taller of St. Mary's two towers. The tune ends abruptly mid-way through to commemorate the watchman that was shot in the throat by an arrow as he tried to warn Krakow of another approaching invading army.  At 12:00 PM, the hejnał is broadcasted all over Poland (and also internationally) by a Polish national radio station.  If you'd like to hear it, follow this YouTube link (which I in no way venture to claim as mine): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVQbxXvyG7A 

Alright, off to work I go!  Ciao!