Krakow in 3 days: Old Town, Salt Mine, Pierogi and more is a travel blog post about our three and a half day trip exploring Krakow and its main historical sights as well as its fine food.

“Delicious”, my husband uttered as he swallowed his potato with cream cheese pierogi. I was pleased with my duck & apple pierogi too. We were having dinner in a traditional Polish restaurant near the Main Market square. It was raining but we left our centrally located hotel as soon as we dropped our bags and went out for a short walk. We walked past the Kraków Barbican (a fortified gateway, an entrance to the Old Town) and through St. Florian’s gate (14^th cent. Gothic tower) and found ourselves on the beautiful St. Florian’s street leading up to the Main Market square. There were only a few people around. I guess that was due to bad weather and the fact that it was a Monday evening and not the weekend.

Rynek Główny (the Main Market Square) is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe. It definitely looks huge! We were both impressed by the square’s size and the beautiful architecture of the townhouses and the churches around it. The mighty, Renaissance Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) dominates the square. There is also the 70 metres tall Town Hall tower but the actual Town Hall was demolished. You can see the impressive Gothic St. Mary’s church at the one end of the square too. Since we were quite hungry we didn’t linger much at the main square but we headed back down Florian’s street to get something to eat.

As we were enjoying our meal we contemplated how easy it was to reach the center of Krakow from the airport by the train. It is relatively cheap too. We had exchanged some of our Euro banknotes to zloty, which is the Polish currency, but in the end we rarely paid by cash since most shops had credit card payments with the option of paying directly in Euro without any exchange rate costs. Of course, we didn’t know this before our trip. After we fished out dinner, we crossed the street to a bar which is a kind of a Polish institution. You see, I did plenty of research about food & drinks in Krakow so I knew that Wodki i piwa bars are a great option for a cheap night out. Surprise, surprise it is cheaper to drink a beer than a juice in Krakow. To finish off our evening, I had an apple & cinnamon paczki which is a kind of a heavenly doughnut. I had one every day during our Krakow visit but in my opinion that wasn’t nearly enough. Krakow made a great first impression on us despite the rain.

The next day the sun appeared and we got to see all the beautiful sights of the Old Town that we saw last night in the rain look even more stunning in the sun. This time we didn’t just walk directly from St. Florian’s gate to the main square but we stepped into some side streets as well. All the buildings we saw have new, renovated facades and I took photos of many gorgeous doors. I expected to see busy streets but again there weren’t a lot of people around and I noticed that all the shops open at 10 or 11 AM and we were already exploring the Old Town before 10.

We wandered around the Main Market square and took some photos. Then, we noticed some souvenir stalls inside the Cloth Hall. I like buying souvenirs but I didn’t make any purchase there. We were startled by the sound of a trumpet from St. Mary’s church. One would expect to hear church bells and not a trumpet signal from the church’s tower. As we later found out, this happens every hour and the trumpet signal honors a trumpeter who was shot in the throat in 13^th century while sounding the alarm before the attack on the city. We didn’t go inside the church but we just circled around it and then proceeded towards the Wawel castle walking down the Royal route. Did I mention that the Old Town, Wawel hill with its castle and Kazimierz neighbourhood are UNESCO World Heritage sites? That’s just one of the reasons that Krakow deserves a place on your bucket list.

Wawel castle is a fortified residency perched on a hill overlooking Vistula river. It was founded by the Polish king Casimir III the Great in 14^th century. Within the castle walls you can see different edifices, towers, courtyards and even the cathedral. Unfortunately, we didn’t buy our tickets online so we couldn’t see some of the parts of the castle that we wanted because the tickets were either sold out or that area was closed. We managed to get the tickets for the Royal private apartments, the Crown Treasury and the Armoury. Dragon’s den wasn’t yet opened so we didn’t see that nor the castle underground. Before we entered the castle’s museum we rambled around the large castle complex. Even if you don’t pay for the tickets to go inside the castle, there’s still a lot to see. You can also admire the views of Vistula river and see different parts of Krakow. There’s also a separate ticket for the cathedral which was the coronation site for the Polish monarchs.

I don’t remember exactly how much time we spent inside the castle but I think it was probably around an hour and a half. I’d definitely recommend visiting the castle. We saw so many beautifully furnished rooms with renaissance and baroque furniture as well as lots of valuable paintings. There was even a woman restoring a painting in one of the rooms that we walked through. As expected there were a lot of gorgeous items and jewelry in the treasury. I noticed a sort of a visitor’s book in one of the rooms with a signature from the British Queen Elisabeth II. My husband admired many swords, knight’s armours, guns, canons and many other weapons in the armoury part. After our visit I came across a souvenir shop and I bought a lovely Christmas bauble and some postcards. I even sent one of the postcards from the post office located in the old tower within the castle complex.

It was time to go down the castle hill to river’s promenade. We couldn’t go inside the Dragon’s den because it was closed but we got to take our photo with the statue of a fire spitting dragon who is a part of Polish mythology. Since we survived the dragon’s attack we went to a lovely restaurant near the castle and enjoyed another traditional Polish meal. We even got a complimentary Wiśniówka (Polish cherry vodka) at the end of our meal. If you want to read more about our meals in Krakow, click here. Following our hearty meal, we strolled back towards the main square but this time we took the University route and we went past several old university buildings. Krakow is actually the second largest city in Poland and it’s a vibrant university city. Suddenly, my husband saw a familiar name on one of the benches in the park through which we were walking. That bench had a plaque with the name of a Croatian writer Miljenko Jergović as a part of some literary tour. Later that day, we were approached on the street by a random guy who heard us discussing the directions and started talking to us in Croatian. He was Polish but he studied Croatian language. As a matter of fact, my husband and I concluded that we can understand a lot of the written Polish language and just some small parts of spoken Polish.

Anyway, we went back to our hotel for a short rest. After that, my husband wanted to find a board game shop so we rambled around the train station and then proceeded all the way towards the modern Opera house building. We saw a Warhammer shop and finally a board game shop but it was rather small and it didn’t have any board games in English so my husband was disappointed. As if we didn’t walk enough, just 23 000 steps, we went back towards the Old Town and we stumbled upon the national theater. I badly wanted a cake so in the end we walked again towards the castle until we came to the pastry shop with divine looking meringue cakes which I saw earlier in the day. To make my husband happy, we ended our evening with a pint in an old pub.

As agreed previously, Wednesday was the designated day for a day trip from Krakow. We’ve spent Monday evening and whole Tuesday exploring Krakow. I was very delighted that I listened to my husband when he suggested that we visit Wieliczka salt mine as a day trip from Krakow. At the end of the salt mine tour we were both flabbergasted by everything we’d seen and learnt. I cannot recommend enough this amazing UNESCO site. If you want to read more about our visit to Wieliczka salt mine, click here.

After the short train journey back from Wieliczka to central Krakow, we did some shopping for our kids and I bought another meringue style cake. I don’t know why but we really don’t have such cakes anymore in Croatia. In general, the prices in Krakow were lower than in Croatia. We had another drink in Wodki i piwa and then I said: “Let’s go and walk by the river”. Instead of walking towards the Castle hill and the river below, we chose to see another part of Vistula river and followed Google maps directions. Initially, we walked through a part of the former Jewish quarter but we didn’t realize how close we were to the interesting sights of Kazimierz. We didn’t know that we could have seen the beautiful square Plac Wolnica if we only had made several turns. Instead, the map took us through some not so nice areas of Krakow. We walked by a very old Jewish cemetery and some shopping center before we reached the river. It wasn’t a lovely walk as I’d imagined. As soon as we reached the river, we turned back and walked all the way to the hotel.

Thursday was our last day in Krakow but since our flight was in the evening we practically had an entire day to explore some more of Krakow. The morning was reserved for our visit to Schindler’s Factory Museum. Again, instead of taking a taxi, we opted to walk all the way to Schindler’s museum. As it turned out, we pretty much followed the same route as the night before when I wanted to get to Vistula river. It was just a 45 minute walk from the Old town but it wasn’t a scenic walk. We went across some bridge and near some old factories and avoided roadworks. We breathed a sigh of relief when we finally reached our destination. I’m sure that you are all familiar with the film Schindler’s List which is based on a book about a German industrialist who saved more than 1200 Polish-Jewish refugees by employing them in his factory during WWII. And now we were at the exact building of Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory which is now a poignant museum about the life in Krakow under Nazi occupation during the Second World War. There are photographs, objects from daily life, recreated rooms, war tanks, concentration camp barbwire and many more things in this museum. You can also see former factory offices and read about Schindler’s life. It’s really difficult to see this museum and leave with a dry eye.

Feeling solemn and sad after our visit to Schindler’s factory museum we went back to the Old town for lunch. We had another lovely meal of cabbage rolls and sour rye soup followed by sweet cherry & mascarpone pierogi. We both loved all our meals in Krakow. I didn’t have any plans for the remainder of our time in Krakow so we just wandered around the Old town and walked again towards the Castle Hill looking at shop windows, people and gorgeous architecture. Afterwards, we picked up our bags from our hotel and took the train back to the airport.

Krakow is such a beautiful city. We’ve really enjoyed our 3,5 days exploring Krakow. We were pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and orderliness of the Old town and how well-preserved it looked. The city wasn’t overcrowded with tourists but maybe that’s because we’d visited it in April. The prices of food and accommodation were lower than in Western Europe or in Croatia as a matter of fact. All in all, we had a rather lovely time in Krakow.

We visited Krakow in April 2023.

This article is also featured on GPSmyCity. To download this article for offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour to visit the attractions highlighted in this article, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Krakow.