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Krakowska Pijalnia Zdrojowa (Kraków Pump Room)

By the Matecznego roundabout in Kraków, in a park laid out on the site of the former spa, operates the Krakowska Pijalnia Zdrojowa — a mineral water pump room opened in 2021, which after almost twenty years restored the locals' access to the Mateczny spring.

The story of one spring

In 1898 Antoni Mateczny discovered a spring of mineral water here; its properties were confirmed by Odon Bujwid's laboratory and the Balneological Institute in Vienna. In 1905 Mateczny opened the Sulphur-Brine Water Bathhouse offering therapeutic baths and drinking cures; its guests included Baron Götz-Okocimski, an archduke from Żywiec, Kraków mayor Juliusz Leo and Stanisław Wyspiański. Today's building is architecturally reminiscent of that bathhouse, next to which it was erected.

Two waters

The pump room serves two varieties of sulphate-chloride-sodium-magnesium-calcium water with a sulphide character: the highly mineralised Mateczny Zdrój and Anton, with a lower mineralisation and a favourable calcium-to-magnesium ratio of about 2:1. You can drink the water on site or take it away, and watch the bottling process behind the glass walls of the filling plant.

Practicalities

The pump room is open daily from 11:00 to 18:00. The entrance is along a promenade lined with trees planted more than a hundred years ago — worth a stroll in season. The site lies in the southern part of Kraków, conveniently combined with a tour of Podgórze.