OJCOWSKI NATIONAL PARK - BLESSED SALOME'S HERMITAGE

 Hidden hermitage-castle, far from the main roads. Tradition connects the castle with Henrique the Beard. This prince had to build the fortress to protect approaching Krakow from the north. Is it the truth or not, we don’t know, some historians connect this the castle with the ruins on Kocica near Pieskowa Skała.
    First sources that definitely say about the hermitage come from 1243, when the prince Boleslaw the Shy gave his sister Salome the town Skała together with adjacent area. Salome, after death of her husband – king Koloman, became a noon of Clarisse’s Order in Zawichost (East of Poland). After getting the castle, moved with her order  and created new monastery here.
    Clarisse’s did not stay here long time. After bloody war with the Tartars, the king Władysław the Elbow moved them to Krakow in 1316, and four years later gave them the church of St. Andrew. The noons stay in the church until now.
    The hermitage-castle, together with the town Skała until 19th century was the property of Clarisse’s.