Less than twelve hours into our month-long stay in Kraków, Stephanie turned to me and simply said “good vibes.” I know what she means. Kraków is vibrant, attractive, clean, and reasonably priced. It checks all the boxes on the traveler wish list. We are excited to be here.
As we walked out of the airport in Kraków a major decision confronted us: public transportation or taxi. Night was falling, we were tired and hungry, there was a large line of waiting taxis, and we had no idea where to catch the bus. After a short huddle to discuss, a decision was made: public transportation.
We have to learn the bus and tram system at some point. Might as well start now.
Using Jakdojade (the Polish public transport app, which we downloaded in advance, a must!), we input the address of our Airbnb in Kazimierz, got a list of public transportation options, and bought tickets. It is super easy to use. Note that your ticket purchase is not completed and activated until validation by entering a specific code found inside the first bus or tram that you get on for your trip.
Jakdojade told us to catch bus 300, travel five stops, exit at Rondo Grunwaldzkie, and head over to the tram line. There we jumped onto the 22 tram, traveled two stops, exited at Stradom, and walked two blocks down the street.
Total cost of the bus and tram ride for two people: 12 Zł ($2.79). Taking a taxi from the airport to old town: 89 Zł ($20.71). We made the right choice. Riding the bus and tram just paid for several nights of beer.
Speaking of beer, of course we immediately started sampling local options that met our criteria (that is a Polish lager or pale ale, absolutely no stouts, IPAs, or crafts beers).
Based on the preliminary results, Zywiec Lekkie is the favorite, followed closely by Kasztelan. Stephanie also really liked LECH EASY, which is unique for being in a clear bottle with a label written in English – clearly marketed at tourists – and tasting suspiciously like Corona. Disclaimer: After the fact we learned that Zatecky is a Czech beer. At least it wasn’t the winner.
Not only was Zywiec the winner, but it happens to be one of the beers on tap at our favorite neighborhood beer garden, Mleczarnia Ogrod.
Enough of the preliminaries; on to the sightseeing.
The historic city center of Kraków, along with Wawel Hill and Kazimierz, is one of seventeen UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Poland. We chose Wawel Castle as our first destination to visit (okay, second after the beer garden).
You can see everything the castle has to offer in a day, but we are a ten-minute walk away and have no desire to power through it all at once. So we split our visit to the castle over multiple days. That is one benefit of being in a location for a month, as we will be in Kraków.
There are numerous exhibitions in the castle. Tickets are sold separately to each. You will be given a specific entry time for each exhibition you choose to visit. Our experience is that the timed entries are not strictly enforced (though that may be different during peak tourist season versus mid-September).
Tickets are available to purchase online ten days in advance. Buying tickets online gives you the ability to select the order and timing of the exhibitions you want to visit.
We visited most, but not all, of what the castle has to offer. With few exceptions, the exhibitions have signs in Polish and English. Audioguides are available if you prefer.
Monday is the free day at Wawel Castle, enabling us to see the following exhibitions at no charge: The Armoury (weapons … guns, swords, pikes, shields, body armor); Lost Wawel (archaeology … foundation, tiles, other excavated objects); and, Art of the Orient, Ottoman Turkish Tents (more weapons, Chinese porcelain, Turkish tents).
Note that tickets are required even on free days as entries are limited. We stopped in the ticket office, requested a ticket for every free exhibit, and were on our way minutes later.
Of the three free exhibitions, the Turkish tents were the most interesting to us because we’ve never seen them before. Stephanie left declaring that she wants to get a Turkish tent. I suggested a cheap redneck version – drape a canopy from Walmart with some colorful patterned sheets and cut windows out in them. I’m not sure she’s falling for that suggestion.
Days later we returned to see three additional exhibitions, after buying tickets online to ensure morning time slots.
Crown Treasury (35 Zł, about $8). For us a nice 30 minute tour of weapons, ceremonial dress, tapestries, and various royal objects. The rooms are relatively small, meaning one tour group will fill up a room. We went back and forth repeatedly to dodge several tour groups passing through.
State Rooms (35 Zł, about $8). Another 30 minute tour of about ten royal rooms. We had lucky timing as there were few tour groups in this section during our visit. These rooms have few lights, few open windows, dark walls and ceilings, and dark furniture. We always enjoy walking through rooms at castles, and the State Rooms turned out to be our favorite at Wawel Castle.
Images of the Golden Age (50 Zł, about $11.50). A temporary exhibit of fine art, almost all religious themed art and objects from the 1500s and 1600s. Not really our preference. We should have realized this before buying tickets as the website mentions “Renaissance art and culture”. I did like the hand printed hymnals, though. We breezed through this exhibit in 45 minutes. At least it is not on the tour group circuit and was not crowded.
We would have seen the Royal Private Apartments, but this exhibit was closed (in part to house the Images of the Golden Age show). Similarly we would have walked up Sandomierska Tower, but it was not open on the days we visited Wawel Hill, and we were not so interested in it to make a separate trip.
Wawel Castle should not be missed if you are in Kraków for any period of time. We really appreciated the fact that you purchase individual tickets to exhibits you want to visit without being forced to buy one expensive ticket covering everything.
We did not expect to use public transportation much in Kraków as the city is very walkable. But the largest grocery store in the area is a Carrefour hypermarket in Galeria Krakowska, near the main train station. It is just too far away for us to walk for groceries. We started taking trams to and from Galeria Krakowska every so often to shop at Carrefour.
The nearby express stores (Zabka, Carrefour Express, Just Shop) will do in a pinch, but are really only good for drinks and chips. As an aside, Zabka seems to have the best beer selection.
Once we started using trams to get to and from Carrefour, it just became easier to ride them more often. Trams and buses are easy to use, clean, efficient, and cheap. Tickets are sold by zone and time. You can buy tickets either on the Jakdojade app or from machines located at the stops or on some trams and buses.
Zone I is a 20 minute ticket for 4 Zł (about $1), more than enough for getting around old town. Zone II is a 60 minute ticket for 6 Zł (about $1.50) that extends into the surrounding areas (such as the airport). Zone III is a 90 minute ticket for 8 Zł (about $2). I have no idea what one needs a Zone III ticket to visit as we never went out that far from the city.
I’ll add that if you need a taxi for any reason, Uber and Bolt are widely used.
Less than twenty-four hours into our month-long stay here, Stephanie commented that she likes Kraków as much as, or even better than, Rome. Whether Kraków firmly displaces Rome as her favorite city remains to be seen. We have a lot more exploring to do first.
Garrett and Stephanie
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beautiful photos! interesting information, thank you