Kraków weaves royal history into everyday city life: Wawel Castle with the Cathedral, the Main Market Square with St Mary's Basilica and its hourly trumpet call, the former Jewish district of Kazimierz and the landscaped boulevards of the Vistula. The historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and many of the sights are within a single day's walk.
Landmarks
Kraków
St. Florian's Gate in Kraków (Polish: Brama Floriańska, "BRAH-mah flo-RYAN-skah") is the medieval city gate and tower that marks the northern entrance to the Old Town at the top of Floriańska Street. Together with a surviving stretch of th…
Other
Kraków
The Vistula Boulevards (Bulwary Wiślane, roughly "bool-VAH-ri veesh-LAH-neh") are Kraków's historic riverside embankments, now the city's favorite place to stroll, cycle and picnic with Wawel Castle as the backdrop. They line both banks of…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The John Paul II Centre "Do Not Be Afraid!" in Kraków is a pilgrimage and cultural complex in the Łagiewniki district (say "wah-gyev-NEE-kee"), built around the octagonal Sanctuary of St. John Paul II, a museum devoted to the Polish pope a…
Landmarks
Kraków
Rakowicki Cemetery (Cmentarz Rakowicki, roughly "rah-ko-VEETS-kee") in Kraków is the city's oldest municipal cemetery and one of Poland's most important burial grounds. Spread over more than 42 hectares of tree-lined avenues, it holds pain…
Other
Kraków
The horse-drawn carriages on the Main Market Square are one of Kraków's best-known sights: two-horse rigs wait at the rank and take passengers around the Old Town, most often towards Wawel. The service is run by many private operators, not…
Old towns & squares
Kraków
For centuries, kings rode along this same route to Wawel to be crowned, and funeral processions carried their coffins the same way. The Royal Route runs from Matejko Square through St Florian's Gate, the Main Market Square and Grodzka and…
Museums
Kraków
Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory in Kraków is the building where the German industrialist made famous by Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List employed and ultimately protected more than 1,100 Jews during World War II. Today it houses a bran…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
Eros Bendato in Kraków is the giant bronze head lying on its side in the Main Market Square (Rynek Główny, roughly "RIH-nek GWOOV-nih"), right next to the Town Hall Tower. Created by the Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj, it is one of the most…
Museums
Kraków
Hipolit House (Kamienica Hipolitów, pronounced roughly "kah-myeh-NEE-tsah hee-po-LEE-toof") is a small branch of the Museum of Kraków on Mariacki Square, right behind St. Mary's Basilica in the city's UNESCO-listed Old Town. Medieval cella…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
In Kraków, people have been raising earth mounds for over a thousand years – from mysterious tumuli linked to the legendary founder Krak and his daughter Wanda to memorials to Kościuszko, Piłsudski and Pope John Paul II. Together the five…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
For years the people of Nowa Huta, a model socialist-realist town built for steelworkers, fought the communist authorities for a new church. The result of their persistence is the Ark of the Lord (Arka Pana), a boat-shaped church with a 70…
Other
Kraków
In 1898 Antoni Mateczny was digging a well for his new house at the end of Kalwaryjska Street. Late in the day water with a strong, sulphurous smell gushed out – the workers were alarmed, but Mateczny, a regular visitor to Karlsbad, immedi…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
One evening in 1916 Hugo Steinhaus was strolling through Kraków's Planty park when he suddenly overheard the words "Lebesgue integral". Intrigued, he approached two young men discussing mathematics – and so discovered Stefan Banach, the fu…
Landmarks
Kraków
A royal city, salt mines, a Holocaust memorial and wooden churches in mountain villages – in Małopolska (Lesser Poland) they all share one thing: a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Małopolska UNESCO Route is a driving route of…
Museums
Kraków
MOCAK, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków (say "MO-tsak"), is the city's leading venue for art of recent decades. It stands in Zabłocie, a former industrial area across the Vistula, on the grounds of Oskar Schindler's wartime enamel…
Museums
Kraków
The Archdiocesan Museum in Kraków, named after Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, occupies two historic townhouses on Kanonicza Street, right below Wawel Castle. It combines a fine collection of sacred art from churches across the Archdiocese of Krak…
Museums
Kraków
Under the glass roof of a former Kraków Fortress building hangs the fuselage of a British Halifax bomber, with a V-2 rocket standing nearby. The General Emil Fieldorf "Nil" Home Army Museum tells the story of the Polish Underground State a…
Museums
Kraków
The Czartoryski Museum in Kraków (say "char-to-RIS-kee") is the branch of the National Museum in Kraków that holds Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine – one of only a handful of Leonardo portraits in the world. Set in a cluster of hist…
Museums
Kraków
The Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków (Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego) is one of Europe's largest aviation museums and a must for anyone who loves aircraft. It occupies the historic Rakowice-Czyżyny airfield (roughly "ra-ko-VEE-tseh chi-ZHI-ni"…
Museums
Kraków
At 17 Kanonicza Street, on the way from the Main Square to Wawel, a red facade hides one of the finest collections of medieval art in Poland. In the Bishop Erazm Ciołek Palace, the National Museum in Kraków displays the Krużlowa Madonna, w…
Museums
Kraków
The National Museum in Kraków – Main Building (Polish: Gmach Główny, roughly "gmakh GWOV-ny") is the largest exhibition venue of Poland's oldest national museum, standing on 3 Maja Avenue just west of Kraków's Old Town, opposite the vast B…
Museums
Kraków
Opposite Wawel, on the other side of the Vistula, stands a building with an undulating roof designed by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. The Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology exists thanks to the film director Andrzej Wajd…
Gardens
Kraków
The Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden in Kraków is the oldest botanical garden in Poland – a peaceful green oasis less than a kilometer from the Old Town and close to the main railway station. Founded in 1783, it covers almost 10 he…
Museums
Kraków
At the Garden of Experiences you learn physics not from a blackboard but on a swing, at a giant Newton's cradle or while pushing a heavy crate. Named after science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem, the park covers 6 hectares of the Polish Airm…