Explore Wieliczka

Wieliczka Salt Mine, near Kraków, was worked for rock salt from the 13th century until 1996 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors go underground only on guided tours; the Tourist Route covers about 3.5 km at depths down to 135 m, past chambers, salt lakes, statues carved in salt by miners and the Chapel of St. Kinga, with 800-plus steps.

The KL Plaszow Memorial Site covers the grounds of the German Nazi camp in Kraków's Podgórze, built in 1942 on two Jewish cemeteries; about 35,000 prisoners, most of them Jews, passed through it until 1945. Visitors walk the marked camp roads past an outdoor exhibition, the Grey House and Witold Cęckiewicz's 1964 monument to the victims.

The Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Łagiewniki is a Roman Catholic shrine that holds the relics of Saint Faustina Kowalska. Beside the 19th-century convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy stands an elliptical basilica built from 1999 to 2002; its 77-metre tower, reached by lift or 315 steps, has a viewing platform at 46 metres.

The former administration building of Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory at Lipowa 4 in Zabłocie, where he employed Jewish workers from the Kraków ghetto and the Płaszów camp during the German occupation. A branch of the Museum of Kraków, it holds the permanent exhibition on Kraków under Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945.

Cricoteka documents the work of Tadeusz Kantor, the painter and theatre director who led the Cricot 2 theatre. Founded in 1980, it has since 2014 occupied a rust-coloured building that spans the former Podgórze power station on the Vistula, with a permanent Kantor exhibition, temporary shows and performances.

The Galicia Jewish Museum occupies a former industrial building at Dajwór 18 in Kazimierz, the historic Jewish quarter of Kraków. Opened in 2004, it is built around a photographic exhibition documenting the traces of Jewish life and culture in Polish Galicia and the sites of the Holocaust, and also shows temporary exhibitions.

The Old Synagogue on Szeroka Street in Kazimierz dates from the 15th century and was rebuilt in Renaissance style after a fire in 1557. German forces looted and wrecked it during the Second World War; it was restored in the 1950s. Today it is a branch of the Museum of Kraków with a permanent exhibition on the history and culture of Kraków's Jews.

The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum shows Polish folk culture in the former town hall of Kazimierz on Plac Wolnica, a Renaissance building with a corner tower. The permanent exhibition presents reconstructed village interiors, regional costumes, crafts, festive customs and folk art; temporary exhibitions are held in the Esterka House on Krakowska Street.

The Polish Aviation Museum opened in 1964 on the former Rakowice-Czyżyny airfield in Kraków, established in 1912 and closed to flying in 1963. Aircraft, helicopters and engines are shown in the old hangars, in a main building opened in 2010 and on the open-air field, ranging from early aviation through the Second World War to Cold War jets.

Wawel Royal Castle stands on Wawel Hill above the Vistula and was the residence of Polish kings until the court moved to Warsaw around 1600. Its Gothic castle was rebuilt in Renaissance style for Sigismund I the Old around an arcaded courtyard; separate ticketed routes lead through the State Rooms, the Private Royal Apartments, the Crown Treasury and the Armoury.

Wawel Cathedral is the Gothic cathedral on Wawel Hill in Kraków, the third church on the site, begun under Bishop Nanker in 1320 and consecrated in 1364. Polish monarchs were crowned here until 1764. Visitors see the golden-domed Sigismund Chapel, the royal tombs in the crypts and the Sigismund Bell of 1521 in its tower.

The Archdiocesan Museum occupies two historic houses at Kanonicza 19–21, on the street leading to Wawel Hill. Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, lived here from 1951 to 1967; his rooms and belongings are shown beside sacred art from the 13th to the 20th century, including a mid-13th-century panel painting from Dębno.

St. Mary's Basilica is a brick Gothic church on Kraków's Main Market Square, rebuilt in the 14th century, with two towers of unequal height. Inside is the carved wooden high altar by Veit Stoss, completed in 1489. Every hour a trumpet call, the hejnał, is played from the taller tower.

The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi is a brick Gothic church of the Conventual Franciscans on All Saints Square in Kraków's Old Town, consecrated in 1249 and enlarged in the 15th century. Inside are Art Nouveau stained-glass windows and wall paintings by Stanisław Wyspiański, including the window "God the Father – Let It Be" above the entrance.

Rynek Underground is a museum beneath Kraków's Main Market Square, opened in 2010 after several years of archaeological excavation. Walkways of about 4,000 square metres lead past uncovered medieval stalls, roads and building remains, with excavated finds, models of the old town and multimedia displays; it is a branch of the Museum of Kraków.

The Cloth Hall is the long trading hall in the middle of Kraków's Main Market Square, rebuilt in Renaissance style after a fire in 1555 and given its arcades in 1875–1879. The ground-floor passage is lined with stalls; the upper floor houses the National Museum's Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art.

The Main Market Square is the central square of Kraków's Old Town, laid out in 1257 after the Mongol raid and covering about 3.8 hectares. The Renaissance Cloth Hall stands in its middle, flanked by the Town Hall Tower, the small Church of St. Adalbert and the Adam Mickiewicz Monument, with St. Mary's Basilica and townhouses around the edges.

St. Florian's Gate is a square Gothic tower gate from around 1300, the only one of Kraków's original old-town gates that still stands. It links Floriańska Street with the Barbican, and the royal coronation route once passed through it. A stretch of the medieval city wall and its towers survives on either side.

The Kraków Barbican is a round brick outwork built around 1498–1499 in front of St. Florian's Gate, with seven turrets and some 130 loopholes in walls about three metres thick. Run by the Museum of Kraków, it is open to visitors, who walk the inner galleries and see an exhibition on the city's medieval defences.

The Czartoryski Museum grew from the collection Princess Izabela Czartoryska began at Puławy in 1801 and has been in Kraków since the 1870s. Part of the National Museum since 2016, it reopened in 2019 after renovation; its galleries hold Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine alongside European paintings and decorative arts.