KRAKOW · POLAND
Old kings, deep salt, the high Tatras.
The largest market square in medieval Europe, a castle of Polish kings, and a ring of day trips no other city can match: the memorial at Auschwitz, the Wieliczka salt mine, and the Tatra mountains at Zakopane.
Only here
Three day trips that define a Krakow visit.
Plenty of cities have an old square and a castle. Few send you out to a place like Auschwitz, down into a cathedral carved from salt, and up under the Tatra peaks, all in the same week.
Memory
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Seventy kilometres west of Krakow, the largest of the Nazi camps is now a memorial and museum that asks to be seen. A guided visit walks the preserved blocks of Auschwitz I and the vast, silent ground of Birkenau, with hotel pickup and a licensed educator. The most important day you will spend in Poland.
- 1 From Krakow: Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel Pickup
- 2 From Krakow: Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel Pickup
- 3 Krakow: Auschwitz Guided Tour with Optional Hotel Pickup
Underground
The Wieliczka Salt Mine
A working mine for seven centuries, now a UNESCO labyrinth of chambers, lakes and chandeliers carved entirely from rock salt, 135 metres down. The Chapel of St Kinga is a full cathedral cut from the walls, altars and all. Cool, surreal, and unlike anywhere above ground.
- 1 From Krakow: Wieliczka Salt Mine Tour
- 2 Krakow: Auschwitz-Birkenau and Salt Mine Guided Tour
- 3 Krakow: Wieliczka Salt Mine Guided Tour with Transport
The mountains
Zakopane & the Tatras
Two hours south, Poland’s highland capital sits under the granite wall of the Tatra mountains. Ride the funicular to the ridgeline for the panorama, soak in geothermal baths fed from deep underground, and eat smoked oscypek cheese in timber chalets. A day that swaps cobblestones for clean alpine air.
- 1 Krakow–Zakopane: Cable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & Vodka
- 2 Krakow: Zakopane Tour with Chocholow Hot Baths and Cable Car
- 3 Krakow: Zakopane, Thermal Springs, Cable Car, Local Tasting
Start here
The day almost every visitor sets aside.
More Krakow trips are planned around this single journey than anything else on the site.
Where most people start
Krakow's Most Popular Tours
Auschwitz and the salt mine, the Old Town and Kazimierz, the Tatras and the river. The days most travellers come to Krakow for.
Where to begin
The trips a Krakow week is built around.
The memorial at Auschwitz, the salt mine at Wieliczka, the Old Town and Wawel, the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, the Tatra mountains, and a table of pierogi and vodka. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Entry is by timed slot and, in busy hours, only with an educator, and it is seventy kilometres each way. So the how matters. Three ways to make the trip from Krakow, depending on the time you have.
Kazimierz
Kazimierz keeps its own hours.
The old Jewish quarter is Krakow at its most atmospheric: seven surviving synagogues, ivy-hung courtyards, a flea market on Plac Nowy and the best bars in the city hidden behind unmarked doors. By day it is heritage and memory; after dark it is the most alive corner of Krakow.
Read the guide: the best of Kazimierz →Food & vodka
Pierogi, oscypek, and vodka poured cold.
Polish food is built for the climate and made for sharing: dumplings stuffed with potato and curd, smoked highland cheese off the grill, hunter’s stew and ruby beetroot soup, and a flight of flavoured vodka to wash it all down. The tasting tours run through the milk bars, cellars and vodka rooms of the Old Town and Kazimierz.
See the food & vodka tours →Wawel Hill
A thousand years sit on the hill above the river.
Wawel rises over a bend in the Vistula: the cathedral where Polish kings were crowned and buried, the arcaded Renaissance courtyard of the castle, and the dragon’s den in the rock below. A river cruise gives you the whole silhouette at once, best of all when the brick catches the last of the light.
Wawel Castle & the river →Podgorze & the ghetto
The factory that saved 1,200 names.
Across the river in Podgorze, Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory is now a museum of Krakow under Nazi occupation, told room by room. Outside, the empty bronze chairs of Ghetto Heroes Square mark where the Jewish quarter was cleared. Schindler’s List was filmed on these streets, and the history is still in them.
- 1 Krakow: Oskar Schindler’s Factory Entry Ticket & Guided Tour
- 2 Krakow: Schindler’s Factory Tour with Entrance Ticket
- 3 Krakow: Schindler’s Factory Skip-the-Line Ticket
Plan by distance
Pick how far you'll travel today.
Krakow is a base. Spend a day in the Old Town, drop underground at Wieliczka in a morning, or give a full day to Auschwitz or the Tatras.
In the city
Stay in the Old Town.The Main Square and Wawel hill, Kazimierz and the Planty park ring, all on foot. Cellar bars and milk-bar lunches in between. Days you never need a car.
An hour out
Down to Wieliczka.The salt mine is half an hour from town, an easy morning underground and back for lunch. Close enough that most people pair it with something else.
A full day there and back
Out to Auschwitz or the Tatras.Seventy kilometres west to the memorial at Oswiecim, or two hours south to the mountains at Zakopane. The big days that need an early start.
The Old Town
The largest medieval square in Europe.
Rynek Glowny has held its shape for seven hundred years: the Cloth Hall down the middle, the twin towers of St Mary’s above it, and a bugle call from the steeple every hour, cut off mid-note the way it has been since the thirteenth century. Horse cabs, flower stalls, and cellar bars under all of it.
See all 136 Old Town tours →By place
The old city, and the day trips beyond.
The Old Town for the square and the cathedral. Kazimierz for the Jewish quarter. Wawel for the kings. Then the roads out: Wieliczka for the salt, Oswiecim for the memorial, Zakopane for the mountains.
By activity
Pick what kind of day you want.
Walk the Old Town. Eat and drink your way through Kazimierz. Cruise the Vistula. Drop into a museum, sink into a thermal bath, or find a cellar bar after dark.
Plan it
Three days that cover the essentials.
First time in Krakow? Here is how three days fall into place: the royal city, the memorial, and the salt mine underground.
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