Underground of Sandomierz, Poland (part 2 of 2)

After a few centuries, when Sandomierz’s position was no longer so strategic, the dungeons were forgotten. Unused and unsecured, they became the cause of construction disasters.

Scientists from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków rushed to the rescue of the Old Town. After the implementation of a special program, the area of a real multi-storey labyrinth of cellars and corridors was recovered. Some excavations had to be liquidated for structural reasons. The remaining sections were used to create the Underground Tourist Route. Its length is currently 470 m. The deepest excavations are at a depth of 12 m. There are 34 chambers along the route, each of which has its own name, which is a reference to the history of Sandomierz. Numerous corridors and chambers dug for centuries are associated with many Sandomierz mysteries and legends.

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Underground of Sandomierz, Poland (part 1 of 2)

Medieval Sandomierz was located at the intersection of important trade routes, and local merchants monopolized trade intermediation. Needing more and more space to store various goods, they dug underground cellars in the soft loess ground under tenement houses and city squares. The deepest ones reached up to 15 meters! In this way, over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, a whole labyrinth of warehouses and tunnels was created under the city.

According to one of the legends, the tunnels also contributed to the defense of the city against the invasion of the Tatars. Halina, the daughter of the castellan of Sandomierz, Piotr Krępa, lost all her relatives, including her father who was the commander of the garrison. During the next invasion, having also lost her husband, she decided, in consultation with the mayor Wiktor, to take revenge on the invaders. For this, she got into the enemy camp. There she told the chief that she had been disgraced by the inhabitants. She offered to lead the Tatars through secret underground corridors into the city.
Halina led them around the dark dungeons for a long time, when the inhabitants of Sandomierz, initiated into the deception, covered the entrance to the corridors with heavy boulders. All the Tatars died, and with them also the heroic girl.

#sandomierz #swietokrzyskie #polska #poland #legend #legenda #podziemia #piwnice #underground #cellars #komory #chambers #kamienice #tenementhouses #houses #corridors #korytarze #labirynt #maze #labyrinth