Smocza Jama

Smocza Jama (Polish for "dragon's den") is a limestone cave in the Wawel Hill in Kraków.

Owing to its location in the heart of the former Polish capital and its connection to the legendary Wawel Dragon, it is the best known cave in Poland.

In the underground pools lives a rare crustacean troglobiont, Niphargus tatrensis, relict of the Tertiary sea fauna.

Smocza Jama has a length of 276 m and a vertical range of 15 m. 13th century Bishop of Kraków Wincenty Kadłubek wrote in his Chronica seu originale regum et principum Poloniae that: For there was in the windings of a certain rock a fiercery ferocious monster, called by some a holophage.

"Smocza Jama was first mentioned on the turn of the 12th century in Wincenty Kadłubek's Chronica Polonorum, which is also the source of the first known version of the Wawel Dragon legend, later further developed by Jan Długosz and Marcin Bielski.