Kraków

Kleparz, Piasek & the Museum Quarter

The ring immediately outside the Planty on the north and west sides — the part of central Kraków that gets used rather than photographed. Kleparz to the north was a separate medieval town and still runs the city's two best food markets. Piasek to the west holds the National Museum, the Philharmonic, the Academy of Fine Arts and a lot of nineteenth-century tenements full of students. Nobody comes to Kraków for this district, which is exactly why it's where you eat lunch with Cracovians rather than with other visitors.

Who it's for: Repeat visitors and anyone on a fourth or fifth day who has finished the obvious list. Market people — Stary Kleparz is the real thing, not a heritage exercise. Art travellers: the National Museum's main building holds Poland's twentieth-century collection and the Lady with an Ermine's home institution runs both. Anyone booking accommodation on a budget who still wants to walk everywhere; this ring is five to fifteen minutes from the Main Square and materially cheaper.

Things to know

  • Two Kleparz markets, and they are different. Stary Kleparz on Rynek Kleparski is the older, denser and more interesting one, five minutes from the Barbican; Nowy Kleparz, fifteen minutes further north on al. Słowackiego, is bigger, cheaper and almost entirely local. Go before 10am to either.
  • Take cash to the markets. Many stalls take cards now, but not all, and the ones selling the best cheese and honey are often the ones that don't.
  • Every branch of the National Museum — including the main building here, the Czartoryski and the Cloth Hall gallery — is free on Tuesdays for permanent exhibitions. All are closed on Mondays.
  • The National Museum's main building is a fifteen-minute walk from the Main Square along ul. Piłsudskiego, or two stops on tram 20 to Cracovia Stadion. It is not near the other National Museum branches, which confuses people.
  • Bunkier Sztuki, the brutalist contemporary art gallery on Plac Szczepański, reopened in 2024 after a three-year rebuild that added underground galleries and made the building properly accessible.
  • Karmelicka is the main artery west out of the Old Town and one of the best ordinary shopping streets in Kraków — bakeries, delis, bookshops, and none of it aimed at visitors.
  • This is where the Michelin Guide's cheapest Kraków entries cluster: MOLÁM on Rajska and Filipa 18 on Św. Filipa are both a short walk from the Planty and both cost a fraction of an Old Town dinner.
  • Plac Matejki, just north of the Barbican, holds the Grunwald Monument — blown up by the Germans in 1939 and rebuilt in 1976 — and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's the city's ceremonial square rather than its scenic one, and worth two minutes on the way to Kleparz.