Myślenice

Myślenice lies south of Kraków, among the hills beside the Raba. Mentioned in the thirteenth century, it began as a fortified settlement guarding the southern approach to Kraków. It received Magdeburg town rights in 1342 and developed as a local trading centre. King Władysław Jagiełło and Queen Jadwiga visited, as did the writer Mikołaj Rej, who worked on part of his Life of an Honest Man here. The town declined in the sixteenth century and was devastated during the Swedish invasion; Austria annexed it in 1772.