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Kraków
City in Poland

Kraków

Kraków, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland.

Plan a trip to Kraków→

Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 816,614 (2025), with 1,428,363 people living in the Kraków metropolitan area. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish economic, academic, cultural, and artistic life. Its Old Town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, one of the world's first sites granted the status.

Get in

Getting to Kraków

  1. 01
    Kraków Airport
  2. 02
    Kraków Główny

    The city's main railway station is next to the main bus station and just north of the bastions of Kraków Old Town.

Do

Things to do

Walk the Royal Way from St Florian's Gate down Floriańska, across the Main Market Square, then down Grodzka to Wawel. Listen to the Hejnał Mariacki while sipping a coffee in the Rynek Główny. This five-note trumpet signal is played on the hour from the tower of St Mary Church, and it's said to be an alert cut short in homage to a trumpeter slain in mid-toot by a Tatar arrow in 1241.

  1. 01
    Jewish Culture Festival

    A classic, one of the biggest Jewish culture festivals in the world.

  2. 02
    Krakow Film Festival

    One of the oldest film events dedicated to documentary, animated and short fiction films in Europe.

  3. 03
    Etiuda and Anima

    International film festival built around animations and short films.

Eat

Where to eat

Kraków's cuisine has been influenced by the cultures that have inhabited central Europe, as well as the Austro-Hungarian empire. Some well-known dishes from Kraków: obwarzanek, a doughy ring halfway between a bagel and a pretzel, sold everywhere for 3 zł or so. zapiekanka, a toasted sandwich with many variants (the most popular ones are with mushrooms, cheese and sauces).

How locals move

Getting around Kraków the local way

  • Get inKTW airport is north of Katowice town, but there are connecting minibuses to town and direct to Kraków.
  • Go nextSK-BUS minibuses from Kraków Main Railway Station (Dworzec Główny), or train (direction: Tarnów, Rzeszów, Stróże, Nowy Sącz/Krynica).

From Wikivoyage: Kraków, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see file page), Wikimedia Commons.