Krakow is definitely on the top of Central European cities with the largest number of museums. Despite the greatest intentions, You won’t be able to visit all of them during the short trip to the city. We recommend to start with Wawel Hill, National Museum and especially Museum under the Main Market Square witch is our number one!
While visiting Old Town, many tourists do not know that a fantastic museum is situated under the surface of the Market Square. This is not surprising, because on the ground level it is not visible at all (its area covers c. 4000 m2!). Everything becomes clear after entering the Cloth Hall building and descending few steps down. Although archaeological works lasted for five years, it was definitely worth to wait. The final effect is amazing and visiting this place should be an obligatory point of any trip plan.
1000 years of history in one place
The exhibition Tracing the European identity of Cracow shows several hundred years of Krakow Market Square. From the very beginning, you can feel just like in the heart of the medieval city. Such an atmosphere is provided not only by the exhibition, but also thanks to the special sounds of the fair bustle. In addition, there are numerous multimedia effects such as holograms, touch screens or film screenings. All these modern facilities makes that this museum will never get bored!
More than 700 objects
Number of exhibition objects is really impressive, but what can we really see? First of all we learn about the city importance for European Hanseatic League and trade routes. There are preserved some medieval transport elements of the aqueduct from the 12th century. You can also see some spectacular relics of the first settlement existing in the place of present market in the 11th century and imagine how Krakow looked like before it was given the city rights. You will also learn a lot about the 11th century graveyard (in some burials called ‘vampiric’ were bodies stabbed by wooden dowels). Besides that you can enter to former basements of Rich Stalls, which were brick buildings on the eastern wall of the Cloth Hall, established during the reign of Boleslaw the Chaste (13th century). Very interesting are also remains of the Huge Scale, official city scale!
Krakow Underground Museum sightseeing
Complete guided tour throug Krakow Underground Museum takes about one hour and a half, but to be honest the enormity of attractions makes that we do not know when that time has passed. It is good to take a professional guide who will tell You some details of Krakow history, and a lot of interesting anecdotes that You cannot read in a guidebook.
