Looking for interesting things to do in Krakow?
Here’s a list of the top attractions you cannot miss if your goal is sightseeing and a nightlife adventure.
- Wawel Castle
Wawel Hill is one of the two truly unique landmarks of the city. This Jurassic limestone rock dominates Krakow’s skyline at about 228 m above sea level. It was formed around 150 million years ago. Wawel stands on the bank of the Vistula river and was once surrounded by waters and marshes. The hill provided a safe haven for people who have settled here since the Palaeolithic Age. Historians believe that Slavs started living on Wawel Hill around the 7th century.
Early medieval legends tell of a dreadful dragon that lived in a Wawel Hill cave, of his slayer – Krakus – and of Krakus’s daughter Wanda, who chose to drown herself in the Vistula rather than marry a German knight. - The Market Square
The main square of Krakow’s Old Town is the principal urban space at the very centre of the city. Dating back to the 13th century and covering roughly 40,000 m² (430,000 ft²), it is one of the largest medieval town squares in Europe. The main square is a rectangular space surrounded by historic townhouses and churches. Its centre is dominated by the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice), topped by a beautiful attic. On one side of the Cloth Hall stands the Town Hall Tower, on the other the 10th-century Church of St Adalbert and the 1898 Monument of Adam Mickiewicz. The Gothic towers of St Mary’s Basilica rise above the square. Krakow’s Market Square has no town hall, because it has not survived to the present day. - Jewish Quarter – Kazimierz
Kazimierz is a historic district of Krakow which, from its foundation in the 14th century until the early 19th century, was an independent royal city of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, located south of Krakow’s Old Town and separated from it by a branch of the Vistula. For centuries, Kazimierz was a place where Jewish and Christian cultures lived side by side and influenced each other. Its north-eastern part was the historic Jewish quarter, whose inhabitants were forcibly relocated in 1941 by the German occupying forces to the Krakow ghetto just across the river in Podgorze. Today Kazimierz is one of Krakow’s major tourist attractions and an important centre of the city’s cultural life and nightlife.
