Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Selected city: krakow
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Polish kings were crowned and buried in this cathedral – from Władysław the Elbow-high, crowned in 1320, to Stanisław Leszczyński. It holds the remains of 17 monarchs (including Queen Jadwiga and Anna Jagiellon), as well as national poets…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Every hour a trumpeter plays the hejnał, a short bugle call, from the taller tower of the basilica – and breaks it off mid-phrase. A few dozen metres below, in the chancel, stands the greatest work of Veit Stoss (Wit Stwosz in Polish): a l…
Landmarks
Kraków
Wawel Hill in Kraków is the limestone rise above the Vistula River where Polish kings lived, were crowned and were buried for more than five centuries. Crowned by the Royal Castle and Wawel Cathedral, it is Poland's most symbolic historic…
Castles
Kraków
Wawel Royal Castle (pronounced "VAH-vel") in Kraków is the former seat of Polish kings and the single most important historic site in southern Poland. Its Renaissance palace, wrapped around an arcaded courtyard, crowns a limestone hill abo…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Cloth Hall in Kraków (Sukiennice, say "soo-kyeh-NEE-tseh") is the long Renaissance market hall standing in the middle of the Main Market Square – one of Europe's largest medieval town squares and the centerpiece of Kraków's UNESCO-list…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Kraków Barbican (Polish: Barbakan, "BAR-bah-kahn") is a Gothic brick fortress with seven slender turrets, standing in Planty Park just outside St. Florian's Gate. Built at the end of the 15th century as the northernmost outpost of the…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The lower part of the façade of St Andrew's Church has no windows — only narrow arrow slits. They are not decoration: according to the chronicler Jan Długosz, in 1241, during the Mongol invasion, the people of Okół, the settlement below Wa…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Sigismund Bell (in Polish Dzwon Zygmunta, roughly "dzvon zig-MOON-tah") hangs in the tower of Wawel Cathedral in Kraków and is Poland's most famous bell. Cast more than 500 years ago, it rings only on the most important religious and n…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
On 23 June 1597 the Jesuits laid the foundations of a church on Grodzka Street to the music of three choirs, with Mass said under a tent. So began the construction of Kraków's first fully Baroque building, funded by King Sigismund III Vasa…
Museums
Kraków
Nicolaus Copernicus studied in this building in the 1490s. The Collegium Maius at 15 Jagiellońska Street is the oldest surviving building of the Jagiellonian University and home to its museum: a Gothic courtyard with arcades, rooms where p…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Legend has it that on the spot where the Corpus Christi Basilica now stands, a stolen monstrance was found in a marsh, with mysterious lights burning above it day and night — and the king promised to build a church there. The facts are jus…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The little church in the corner of Kraków's Main Market Square is older than the square itself — by roughly a century. St Adalbert's Church is one of the oldest stone churches in Poland, with walls dating back to the 11th century. That is…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The Old Synagogue in Kraków, on Szeroka Street in the historic Jewish district of Kazimierz ("ka-ZHEE-myesh"), is the oldest surviving synagogue building in Poland and one of the most important monuments of Jewish architecture in Europe. F…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
On a small limestone hill above the Vistula, a few hundred metres from Wawel, Bishop Stanislaus of Szczepanów was killed in 1079, according to tradition. The Baroque Basilica of St Michael the Archangel and St Stanislaus, known simply as S…
Zoos
Kraków
Kraków Zoo is not in a city park but on Pustelnik Hill in the middle of Wolski Forest, about 8 km from the Main Market Square. Its 20 hectares are home to around 1,500 animals from more than 270 species, over a hundred of them classed as e…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
From Miodowa Street, the Tempel looks like an elegant town house with a triangular gable. Inside, visitors find a colourful, gilded hall in the Moorish style, quite unlike the austere Renaissance synagogues of Kazimierz. This Progressive s…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Behind a gate with a Hebrew inscription on Szeroka Street lies a small white prayer hall measuring just 10.4 by 5.1 metres. The Remuh Synagogue is the second-oldest synagogue in Kraków and the only one in the city where services are held r…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Kraków
The Camaldolese Hermitage at Bielany (Polish: Klasztor na Bielanach, roughly "KLAHSH-tor nah byeh-LAH-nakh") is a Baroque monastery on Silver Mountain, rising above the Vistula valley at the edge of Wolski Forest on Kraków's western outski…
Hidden gemCaves
Kraków
The Dragon's Den (Polish: Smocza Jama, roughly "SMOH-chah YAH-mah") is a limestone cave inside Wawel Hill in Kraków, the legendary lair of the Wawel Dragon. A short, atmospheric route takes you from the castle grounds down a spiral stairca…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Kraków
Mogiła Abbey (say "mo-GHEE-wah") is a Cistercian monastery in Kraków's Nowa Huta district – and the oldest landmark of a neighborhood better known for Stalin-era architecture. Monks have lived here without interruption since 1222. Its basi…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Kraków
Most visitors in St Mary's Square look up at the towers of St Mary's Basilica — and walk straight past the smaller church on the other side of the square. Yet St Barbara's holds a stone Pietà from the late 14th century, a carved Garden of…
Hidden gemMuseums
Kraków
In Kraków's Kazimierz district, at ul. św. Wawrzyńca 15, stands a group of halls that since the late 19th century has housed horse-drawn trams, narrow-gauge electric trams and buses in turn. The museum calls it unique in Europe — an almost…
Hidden gemPalaces
Kraków
Krzysztofory Palace, on the corner of the Main Market Square and ul. Szczepańska, is the headquarters of the Museum of Kraków and one of the best places to get to grips with the city's history in a single afternoon. It takes its name from…
Hidden gemMuseums
Kraków
Jan Matejko, Poland's great painter of national history, bought this manor house in 1876 with money from the sale of his painting "Batory at Pskov" – mainly so that his often sickly children could breathe country air. In Krzesławice, now p…