Wawel Castle has stood on its limestone hill above the Vistula for around a thousand years, and Poland has poured its entire national story into it. Every king between 1319 and 1596 lived here. Every coronation from 1320 to 1734 took place in the cathedral next door. The bones of a dragon hang by its doorway, and legend holds that if they ever fall, Poland falls with them.

The Royal Palace was built by Italian Renaissance architects in the 1500s. A court alchemist reportedly started a fire trying to turn copper into gold, which so embarrassed King Sigismund III that he moved the capital to Warsaw. Inside the cathedral, 18 chapels document centuries of Polish fortune and misfortune, and a 13-tonne bell requires twelve people to ring it.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use Wawel Castle to trace Poland's full arc: coronations and catastrophes, royal alchemists and Nazi occupation, a legendary dragon and the generals buried beneath.