Short Trips EuropeDiscover Europe's cities on foot
🔍
Poland · City break

Kraków City Guide

Five hundred years as Poland's royal capital left their mark: one of Europe's largest medieval market squares with the Cloth Hall at its heart, Wawel Hill above the Vistula with castle and royal tombs, and the green Planty ring where the walls once stood. Two ready-made day routes split the city between them.

🗺️ Open Kraków interactively – map & navigation

Our walking tours of Kraków

Ready-made routes from the station guide you through Kraków – to the right spots from the very first step, with no planning needed.

Old Town & Wawel

Day one follows the old Royal Route: from the Florian Gate, the last surviving city gate, across the huge main square with the Cloth Hall and St Mary's Basilica, then down Grodzka street to Wawel Hill with its royal castle and cathedral. All on foot, all close together.

  1. Florian Gate (Brama Floriańska) – The day starts at the Florian Gate, the only one of the city's original eight gates to survive the demolitions of the 19th century. When the fortifications came down to make room for the green Planty belt, this stretch of wall and the Barbican were left standing - supposedly because people feared draughts blowing through the city. This is where the Royal Route begins, the road Poland's rulers took to their coronation at Wawel. Along the outer wall hangs an open-air gallery of local painters today, kitschy but likeable.
  2. Rynek Główny (Main Market Square) – At roughly 200 by 200 metres, Rynek Główny is one of Europe's largest medieval market squares, laid out in 1257 after the Mongol raids and barely altered since. The Cloth Hall stands in the middle, surrounded by townhouses, churches and the lone town hall tower, whose town hall was pulled down in the 19th century. Beneath the paving there is a museum built around the excavated foundations of the medieval market stalls. The square is at its best early in the morning, before the carriages, flower stands and tour groups fill it.
  3. St Mary's Basilica – St Mary's Basilica with its two unequal towers is the city's landmark, and inside a deep blue starry vault instantly quietens the room. Its centrepiece is the altarpiece by Veit Stoss, carved between 1477 and 1489, over twelve metres tall and one of the most important works of late Gothic sculpture anywhere. On every hour a trumpeter plays the Hejnał from the taller tower in all four directions - and breaks off mid-note, in memory of a watchman said to have been struck by an arrow. Visitors use the side entrance; the main door is reserved for worshippers. A few minutes outward from the centre, by the way, you reach the Planty, the green ring laid out where the old city walls stood - perfect for a shady breather between stops.
  4. Cloth Hall (MNK Sukiennice) – The Cloth Hall has stood in the middle of the market since the 14th century and was once the trading hall for cloth, spices and salt. Downstairs, stalls now sell amber, wooden boxes and souvenirs; upstairs is the gallery of 19th-century Polish painting, a branch of the National Museum. It holds the great history canvases of Jan Matejko and the atmospheric landscapes of Chełmoński - painting every Pole knows and almost nobody outside Poland has seen. Allow about an hour, and note that the gallery is closed on Mondays.
  5. Wawel Castle – On the limestone bluff above the Vistula sits Wawel, for Poles the country's single most important place: seat of the kings for 500 years, later a barracks for occupiers, today a museum and a national symbol. The Renaissance courtyard with its three tiers of arcades is free to enter; the state rooms, the crown treasury and the armoury each need their own ticket. The famous Flemish tapestries commissioned in Brussels by King Sigismund Augustus were smuggled out of the country twice and came back both times. In summer the time slots go early, so book ahead and pick two exhibitions rather than all of them.
  6. Wawel Cathedral – Right beside the castle stands the cathedral, where Polish kings were crowned and buried for more than 400 years. The interior is a jumble of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque, because every era added a chapel - most striking of all the gilded dome of the Sigismund Chapel. In the crypt lie not only the kings but national heroes such as Kościuszko and Piłsudski. Take the stairs and you reach the Sigismund Bell of 1520, rung only on high holidays and needing twelve ringers to swing it. From up there you also get the best view over the old town roofs.

Kazimierz & Podgórze

Day two heads south of the old town through Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter with its synagogues and flea markets, crosses the Bernatek footbridge to the far bank of the Vistula into Podgórze and the Ghetto Heroes Square, and ends at Schindler's Factory. A quieter day than the first, but a considerably heavier one.

  1. Szeroka (Kazimierz) – Kazimierz was a separate town for centuries and later the heart of Jewish life in Krakow. Szeroka is more a long square than a street, lined with low old houses, and several synagogues stand on it: the Old Synagogue, now a museum, and the Remuh Synagogue with its Renaissance cemetery behind, whose gravestones were pieced back together from rubble after the war. After 1945 the quarter lay derelict for decades and was only rediscovered in the nineties. Take time for the side lanes, where much of the original fabric survives, old shop signs included.
  2. Bernatek Footbridge – Since 2010 the Bernatek footbridge has linked Kazimierz with Podgórze and it is the most relaxed way to cross the Vistula. Above the railing float acrobat figures by the sculptor Jerzy Kędziora, turning gently in the wind - balancing acts in bronze with no visible support. Thousands of love padlocks hang from the railing itself. From the middle of the bridge you see Wawel upstream and, downstream, the new riverside walks where boats moor as bars in summer.
  3. Ghetto Heroes Square – Seventy empty chairs of bronze and cast iron stand across this square, scattered like furniture left behind. This was the central square of the Podgórze ghetto set up in 1941, and it was from here that people were driven to the trains for the camps, leaving their belongings in the street. The 2005 memorial takes up exactly that image. On the corner stands the Pharmacy Under the Eagle, whose Polish owner Tadeusz Pankiewicz was the only non-Jew allowed to stay in the ghetto and helped wherever he could - today a small museum. A place to pause rather than to photograph.
  4. Schindler's Factory – Oskar Schindler's former enamelware factory now houses a museum about Krakow under German occupation from 1939 to 1945. The exhibition is densely staged: reconstructed streets, a living room, a tram, audio recordings and personal objects, plus a lot of text on the walls. Honest note: it is less about Schindler himself than the name suggests - his office is just one room among many - and more about the life of the city and its Jewish population in those years. Allow at least an hour and a half and book the timed ticket early, slots often go days in advance.

Getting there & around

In Krakow you can walk almost everywhere: the old town is car-free and the green belt of the Planty makes the routes pleasant. For longer distances there is a dense MPK tram and bus network; buy tickets from the machine on board or in the app, with time tickets from 20 minutes. Important: St Mary's Basilica, Wawel and above all Schindler's Factory use timed tickets - book them in advance or you'll be facing sold-out slots. And in summer the main square gets seriously crowded from late morning, so an early start pays off.

Going out & nightlife

Rooftop bars

Nightlife quarters

Food & restaurants

Bars & clubs

Stage & concerts

See all stops for Kraków in the app →

More cities

BerlinLondonParisBarcelonaRomeBudapestFlorenceDresdenLuxembourgMarseillePragueNaplesMonte-CarloNiceAmsterdamBrusselsCopenhagenOsloStockholmBratislavaHamburgAntwerpBernAthensBordeauxBrugesDublinEdinburghMunichViennaTallinnLucerneSalzburgPortoCologneBaselRigaVilniusZurichRotterdamStrasbourgGenoaMálagaLisbonMadridMilanValenciaSevilleInnsbruckDubrovnikHelsinkiLjubljanaSarajevoSienaTurinVeronaBilbaoZagrebGdańskWarsawPalermoLyonVenice