Book nowBook the Auschwitz guided tour for Thursday the moment the date opens: English tours fill weeks ahead from spring.
Hours, prices and coordinates are from general knowledge; re-check them on the official sites the week before you fly.
Three days: the old town and Wawel on arrival, Auschwitz-Birkenau on the second, the salt mine and the wartime city before the flight.
Land at 10:00, bags into storage until the 15:00 check-in. The Market Square and St Mary's, pierogi at a milk bar, Wawel in the afternoon, Kazimierz at night.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →about 18 zł each20 min
The station is a covered walkway from arrivals; trains every 30 minutes. Buy at the machine on the platform with a bank card or on board. From Główny, tram 3 or 24 to Kazimierz, or 25 minutes on foot.
20–30 zł a bagbook online
Bounce and Radical Storage keep bags in shops round Plac Nowy; book for 11:00–15:00.
The largest medieval town square in Europe, laid out in 1257, with the Renaissance Cloth Hall in its middle.
free
Twenty minutes north on foot up Grodzka. The Cloth Hall's arcade sells amber and wooden toys. On the hour, a trumpeter plays the hejnał from St Mary's tower and stops mid-note.
The Gothic church on the square, whose carved wooden altarpiece of 1489 by Veit Stoss is the largest in Europe.
about 15 zł each
Buy the ticket at the shop opposite the side door. The altarpiece's wings are opened by a nun at 11:50; be inside a few minutes before. The star-painted vault is the rest.
A bar mleczny, or milk bar, is a subsidised canteen from the communist years, still serving cheap home food.
25–40 zł each
On the streets south of the square. Order at the till from the board: pierogi with potato and cheese, żurek sour rye soup, a cutlet. Trays, plastic cups, no frills.
The hill of Poland's kings: a Renaissance castle with an arcaded courtyard, and the cathedral where they were crowned and buried.
about 80–100 zł eachday's highlighttimed tickets
Ten minutes down Grodzka. Castle exhibitions are separate, timed tickets; the State Rooms with the 16th-century tapestries are the one to choose. Book online.
The cathedral has its own ticket: climb the tower for the Sigismund Bell, then down to the royal tombs. At the bottom of the hill on the river side is the Dragon's Den cave and a bronze dragon that breathes fire every few minutes. Allow two and a half hours.
The old Jewish town of Krakow, with seven synagogues, now full of bars and restaurants; Plac Nowy is its square, round a round market hall.
free
Walk Szeroka street, past the Old Synagogue and the Remuh cemetery, to Plac Nowy. The hatches of the round hall sell zapiekanki, half-baguettes with mushrooms and cheese.
80–130 zł each
Restaurants round Szeroka and Józefa serve Polish and Jewish food in candlelit rooms. Then a vodka bar for a tasting of flavoured vodkas, with herring and pickles on the side.
A minibus to Oświęcim for a guided tour of Auschwitz I and Birkenau, about three and a half hours. Back in Krakow by mid-afternoon, a quiet evening.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →about 20 zł each way1 h 30 min
Tram to Dworzec Główny, then the MDA bus station behind the railway station. Minibuses to 'Oświęcim Muzeum' leave from the lower level; pay the driver in cash. The stop is at the memorial's entrance.
The first camp of the German Nazi complex at Oświęcim, where about 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered in 1940–45; now a memorial and museum.
about 130 zł each with a guideday's highlightbook weeks aheadID needed
Be at the entrance 30 minutes early with ID; bags larger than A4 are not allowed in. The guided tour in English starts in Auschwitz I: the 'Arbeit macht frei' gate, the blocks with the exhibitions of belongings and hair, the wall of death and gas chamber I.
The tour is hard to take in; there are no cafés inside and photography is not allowed in two rooms. Dress for the weather: much of it is outdoors.
The vast extermination camp three kilometres from Auschwitz I, with the railway ramp, the barracks and the ruins of the gas chambers.
includedlong walks outdoors
A free shuttle bus takes the group from Auschwitz I. The tour walks from the gate tower along the ramp to the blown-up crematoria and the memorial at the end of the tracks. About 90 minutes, all outside.
30–50 zł each
The visitor centre by Auschwitz I has a café and a canteen. Minibuses back to Krakow leave from the same stop.
70–120 zł each
The streets south of Plac Nowy have small restaurants with gardens behind them: duck with apples, pierogi with game, beetroot soup. A middle option, tables outside in May.
Bags into storage at 8:30 and the train to Wieliczka for the 10:00 mine tour. Schindler's Factory in the afternoon, the airport train at 17:30.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →20–30 zł a bagbook online
The same storage shop as on Wednesday, booked until 17:30.
about 6 zł each20 min
Tram to Główny, then the suburban train every 30 minutes; card at the platform machine. Ten minutes' walk from the stop to the Daniłowicz shaft.
A salt mine worked from the 13th century to 1996, whose miners carved chapels, statues and chandeliers out of rock salt, 135 metres down.
about 160 zł eachday's highlight800 steps
The Tourist Route is a guided walk of three kilometres, two to three hours, with about 800 steps, most of them down. Book an English time online.
The Chapel of St Kinga is the high point: a church 54 metres long, with salt chandeliers and a Last Supper carved in the wall. It is 14–16°C below. A lift brings you back up.
50–80 zł each
Train back to Kraków Zabłocie, two stops before Główny. The streets by the Zabłocie station have cafés and bistros in old factories.
The enamel works of Oskar Schindler, who saved about 1,200 Jews by employing them, now a museum of the city under German occupation.
about 45 zł eachtimed tickets
Five minutes from lunch. Timed tickets sell out; book online. The exhibition goes room by room through 1939–45 in Krakow; Schindler's office with its wall of enamel pots is near the end. Allow an hour and a half.
The square of the wartime Kraków ghetto, where the deportations started, now filled with 70 empty iron chairs as a memorial.
free
Ten minutes west. The Eagle Pharmacy on the corner, run by the only Pole allowed inside the ghetto, is a small museum. Then across the Bernatek footbridge back to Kazimierz.
Tram ticket machines on board and at stops take contactless bank cards.
Tap a bank card at the machine inside the tram, or buy in the Jakdojade app; validate paper tickets in the box on board. Trains to the airport and Wieliczka are Koleje Małopolskie, with their own machines. The minibuses to Oświęcim take cash only.
Entry is free but every visit must be booked on visit.auschwitz.org; between April and October visitors in the middle of the day must join a guided tour. Bring ID; bags larger than A4 are refused, and the left-luggage room is small. Children under 14 are not recommended.
Pierogi, żurek soup served in bread, bigos stew, and obwarzanek, the ring-shaped bread sold from blue carts. Vodka is drunk cold and neat, often with a pickle or herring after.
Poland uses the złoty, about 4.3 to the euro. Cards work almost everywhere; keep cash for minibuses and milk bars, and avoid Euronet machines. Tip about 10% in restaurants. Bounce and Radical Storage keep bags in shops round Plac Nowy, booked online.
For two, 3 days and 2 nights in Krakow, staying in Kazimierz. Covers the flat, the city tax, transport, bag storage, tickets and tours, every meal and a buffer. Flights are not included.
| Item | Economy | Comfort | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat in Kazimierz, 2 nights | 700 zł | 1,200 zł | 350–600 zł a night |
| City tax | 10 zł | 10 zł | About 2.5 zł a person a night |
| Trains, trams, minibuses | 180 zł | 350 zł | Comfort takes taxis to and from the airport |
| Bag storage, two days | 100 zł | 120 zł | 2 bags × 2 days |
| Auschwitz guided tour | 260 zł | 260 zł | About 130 zł each |
| Wieliczka Salt Mine | 320 zł | 320 zł | About 160 zł each |
| St Mary's, Wawel, Schindler's Factory | 300 zł | 340 zł | About 150–170 zł each |
| Lunches | 200 zł | 300 zł | 3 lunches for two |
| Dinners and vodka | 350 zł | 550 zł | 2 dinners for two |
| Coffee and snacks | 100 zł | 150 zł | |
| Buffer | 200 zł | 400 zł | Amber, a taxi |
| Total | 2,720 zł | 4,000 zł |
Realistic figure: About 3,100–3,500 zł for two (€720–820), without flights
Cards work almost everywhere. Keep 200 zł in cash for the Oświęcim minibuses, milk bars and the bread carts.
All of them: the WayFriend guide library.
