The Sandomierska Tower
about 1460
Guarding the southern approach to the hill stands a tall, plain brick tower with a steep roof, one of three artillery towers built in the fifteenth century when the threat of gunpowder made the old walls insufficient. Its name comes from the region of Sandomierz, whose nobles were responsible for defending this stretch of the fortifications. Together with the Senator Tower and the Thieves' Tower it defined the silhouette of Wawel from the river for centuries, and it is the one you can climb.
The tower is a solid cylinder at the base rising into a polygonal upper section with gun ports and small windows. Inside, a narrow wooden staircase winds up past the thick walls, and the museum has placed a small display on the history of the hill's defences along the way. The reward comes at the top: a platform with views over the Vistula bend, the roofs of the Kazimierz district, the hills to the south and, on a clear day, the distant Tatra Mountains. It is one of the best panoramas in the city and far less crowded than the Cathedral towers.
The tower was used as a prison in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Austrians later stripped its roof and turned the whole hill into a fortress with new brick ramparts. The tower's present roof is a twentieth century reconstruction based on old views of the castle. Come in the late afternoon when the sun lights up the Old Town, and bring a light jacket since the top is exposed to the wind off the river.
Did You Know? The tower once served as a prison, and today it offers a view that on clear days reaches the Tatra Mountains a hundred kilometres away.
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