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Former Town Hall of Kazimierz
The former town hall of Kazimierz was built in the late 14th century in the centre of a vast market square (Plac Wolnica is all that's left). It was significantly extended in the 16th century, at which time it acquired its Renaissance appearance. The Ethnographic Museum is here.
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Franciscan Monastery
Adjoining the mighty Basilica of St Francis from the south is the Franciscan Monastery, which preserves its original Gothic cloister complete with fragments of 15th-century frescoes and portraits of Kraków's bishops. Enter the cloister from the transept of the church.
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Galicia Museum
From the Corpus Christi Church, walk east along ul Św Wawrzyńca for 500m to what should be your first port of call in the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz - the Galicia Museum, which both commemorates Jewish victims of the Holocaust and celebrates Jewish culture in Galicia past, present and future.
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Ghetto Wall
Just south of Plac Bohaterów Getta in Podgórze are the remains of the ghetto wall with a plaque marking the site.
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High Synagogue
Less than 100m southeast of Isaac's Synagogue is the High Synagogue, built around 1560 and the third oldest of the Jewish quarter's synagogues after the Old and the Remuh Synagogues. It contains a photographic exhibition on the 1st floor and Kraków's best Jewish bookshop, Austeria, on the ground floor.
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Hipolit House
On Plac Mariacki is Hipolit House, a branch of the city history museum than contains faithful recreations of town house interiors from the 17th to early 19th centuries.
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Isaac's Synagogue
Near the southeastern edge of the Remuh Cemetery is Isaac's Synagogue, Kraków's largest synagogue. Completed in 1644, it was returned to the Jewish community in 1989. Inside you can see the remains of the original stuccowork and wall-painting decoration and a photography exhibition.
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Kazimierz
Today one of Kraków's inner suburbs and located within walking distance south of Wawel and the Old Town, Kazimierz was for a long time an independent town with its own municipal charter and laws. Its colourful history was determined by its mixed Jewish-Polish population, and though the ethnic structure is now wholly different, the architecture gives a good picture of its past, with clearly distinguishable sectors of what were Christian and Jewish quarters.
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Kościuszko Mound
The prime attraction of the suburb called Zwierzyniec, just under 3km west of the Old Town, is the Kościuszko Mound, erected between 1820 and 1823 soon after Kościuszko's death, to pay tribute to the man who embodied the dreams of independent Poland in times of foreign occupation. The mound stands 34m high, and soil from the Polish and American battlefields where Kościuszko fought was placed here. The views over the city are spectacular.
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Kraków City History Museum
At the northern corner of Rynek Główny (the Main Market Square), the 17th-century Krzysztofory Palace is home to the Kraków City History Museum. Basically the story of Kraków from 1257 to WWII, the museum features a bit of everything related to the city's past, including old clocks, armour, paintings, Kraków's celebrated szopki (Nativity scenes), and the costume of the Lajkonik.
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Las Wolski
The 485-hectare Las Wolski, west of Zwierzyniec, is the largest forested area within the city limits and a popular weekend destination for city dwellers.
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Lost Wawel
Wawel Royal Castle is now a museum containing five separate sections, each requiring a different ticket that is valid for a specific time. There's a limited daily quota of tickets for some parts, so arrive early if you want to see everything or phone ahead to reserve. You will need a ticket even on 'free' days.
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Małopolska Contemporary Art Collection
Dominating Rynek Główny (the Main Market Square) is the centrally positioned Cloth Hall, once the centre of Kraków's medieval rag trade. The ground floor is still a trading centre but now one for crafts and souvenirs, while the upper floor is taken over by the Małopolska Contemporary Art Collection, replacing the Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Painting (Galeria Sztuki Polskiej XX Wieku). That collection, with works by Józef Chełmoński, Jacek Malczewski, Aleksander Gierymski and the leader of monumental historic painting, Jan Matejko, has been moved to the Royal Castle at Niepołomice, 20km east of Kraków, for three years while Cloth Hall is renovated.
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Mały Rynek
East of Plac Mariacki is the Mały Rynek, the 'Little Market Square'. It was the meat market in medieval times.
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Monastery of the Camaldolese Monks
The hilly southern part of Las Wolski (Wolski Forest) facing the Vistula, known as Srebrna Góra (Silver Mountain), is topped with the mighty Monastery of the Camaldolese Monks. The order, part of the Benedictine family of monastic communities, was brought to Poland from Italy in 1603 and in time founded a dozen monasteries throughout the country. Today there are just two in Poland, including another in Masuria.
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Museum of Pharmacy
It might not sound like a crowd-pleaser but the Jagiellonian University Medical School's Museum of Pharmacy is one of the largest museums of its kind in Europe and arguably the best. Accommodated in a beautiful historic town house worth the visit alone, it features a 22,000-piece collection, which includes old laboratory equipment, rare pharmaceutical instruments, heaps of glassware, stoneware, mortars, jars, barrels, medical books and documents. Several pharmacies dating back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, including one from Lesko, have been painstakingly recreated here, and the garret is crammed with elixirs and panaceas, including vile vials or dried mummy powder. Much attention is given to the 'righteous gentile' Tadeusz Pankiewicz and the Pharmacy Under the Eagle he courageously kept in operation in the Jewish ghetto during the German occupation.
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National Museum in Kraków
The so-called Main Building (Gmach Główny) of the National Museum in Kraków, 500m due west of the Old Town down ul Piłsudskiego, houses three permanent exhibitions: the Gallery of 20th-Century Polish Painting, the Gallery of Decorative Art, and Polish Arms and National Colours - plus various temporary exhibitions.
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New Jewish Cemetery
Northeast of the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz and behind the railway bridge is the New Jewish Cemetery, which is much larger than the Remuh Cemetery. It was established around 1800 and is the only burial place for Jews now in use in Kraków. There are some 9000 surviving tombstones (the oldest dating from the 1840s), some of which are of great beauty. In contrast to the manicured Remuh Cemetery, this one is completely unkempt and overgrown, which makes it an eerie and very sad sight.
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Nowa Huta
The youngest and largest of Kraków's suburbs, Nowa Huta is a result of the postwar rush towards industrialisation. In the early 1950s a gigantic steelworks, and a new town to serve as a bedroom community for its workforce, were built about 10km east of the centre of Kraków. The steel mill accounted for nearly half the national iron and steel output, and the suburb has become a vast urban sprawl, populated by over 200,000 people.
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Nowa Huta Museum
In Nowa Huta, drop into the tourist office a couple of hundred metres north of Plac Centralny, the suburb's central square, for a free map and to inspect the Nowa Huta Museum inside.
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Old Synagogue
At the southern end of ul Szeroka is the fine Old Synagogue, which dates back to the end of the 15th century, the oldest Jewish house of worship in the country. Damaged by fire in 1557, it was reconstructed in Renaissance style by the Italian architect Matteo Gucci.
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Old Town
The layout of the Old Town was drawn up in the mid-13th century after devastation caused by the Tatar invasions and has survived more or less in its original form. The construction of the fortifications began in the 13th century, and it took almost two centuries to envelope the town with a powerful, 3km-long chain of double defensive walls complete with 47 towers and eight main entrance gates as well as a wide moat.
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Oriental Art Exhibition
Wawel Royal Castle is now a museum containing five separate sections, each requiring a different ticket that is valid for a specific time. There's a limited daily quota of tickets for some parts, so arrive early if you want to see everything or phone ahead to reserve. You will need a ticket even on 'free' days. The castle's Oriental Art Exhibition features a collection of 17th-century Turkish banners and weaponry, captured after the Battle of Vienna, displayed along with a variety of old Persian carpets, Chinese and Japanese ceramics, and other Asian antiques. The entrance is from the northwestern corner of the courtyard.
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Oskar Schindler's Enamelware Factory
About 400m east of Plac Bohaterów Getta in Podgórze is Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory.
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Park Wodny
Poland's largest water park, Park Wodny , is 2.5km northeast of the Old Town and accessible by bus 125, 128 and 152 from the train station. It boasts various pools, including one enormous one with hundreds of metres of water chutes and slides, climbing-walls, Jacuzzis, and various saunas, as well as video games, an internet café, a restaurant and a water bar.
