Vistulan Boulevards in Kraków

This guide to the Vistulan Boulevards in Kraków starts with the bronze dragon breathing fire just upstream, then turns to the real menace it symbolizes: centuries of flooding that culminated in a catastrophic 1903 flood tearing through the riverside districts. You'll hear how Austrian authorities put engineer Roman Ingarden in charge of taming the river, and how the stone walls beneath your feet, begun in 1907, doubled as loading wharves for a planned canal to the Danube that history never finished. Listen for the cyclists and joggers along the same defenses once built to hold back the water.