When a Hungarian princess Kinga was a little girl, she dreamt about everything that little girls dream about …. to become a princess, to marry a handsome prince, to have the world at her feet. She did not even dream of becoming a mistress of a foreign country, of marrying a real prince and being printed in the hearts of the Pieniny highlanders forever.
Those were the times when salt was valued higher than gold.
She was the inspiration for many legends which have been told in Pieniny region to this day. One of them is the story about the engagement ring thrown into the shaft of the Hungarian mine of Maramuresa and discovered in the first block of salt excavated in Bochnia.
The legend has it that the local springs are a gift from Saint Kinga, the Mistress and the Patroness of the Pieniny mountains – a Hungarian princess who married a Polish prince and fell in love with the land. The springs located in the protection zone of the national park in Krościenko-upon-Dunajec are named after her.