A Quick Spin Through Krakow

Our time in Krakow was the shortest we’ve had since starting this trip. We spent two days / three nights in the city. We enjoyed seeing the city, but also found it a bit exhausting due to the heat and the crowds. We stayed in a nice Airbnb apartment that was a two-minute walk from a quick tram ride into the center (or about a twenty-minute walk to the city center, but we always took the tram to spare the kids the extra walking). 

We liked Krakow, but we also felt it was the least child-friendly place we’ve visited so far. During our travels, we’ve grown used to seeing friendly smiles directed at our kids every where we’ve been. But in Krakow, our kids only seemed to draw frowns or reproachful looks for no apparent reason. Also, the city has a neat historic center that is quite compact, but the smaller size of the center tends to really concentrate the tourists in one place so we often found ourselves surrounded by tour groups and many people, and so we had to really keep the kids close to us. The city bills itself as child friendly—in large part because of a neat dragon legend (described below)—but in our opinion Krakow wasn’t a city we would necessarily recommend as a child-friendly destination. 

That being said, there are some very interesting things to see and do, and here are some of the things we did while in Krakow:

• We visited the main square Rynek Glowny a few times. This square is the biggest medieval square in Europe and is lined with cafes, street performers and musicians, and horse-drawn carriages. Keeping with the theme of visiting sites early in the morning, we went to the square close to 7:30 a.m. and got it all to ourselves. Not only was it pleasant not being around crowds, but it was also nice to be out before it got too hot to walk around.

• We visited the Old Jewish Quarters and the historic Jewish Ghetto. It is quite sobering to be in a place so tied to the Holocaust. Nearly all the Jewish residents of Krakow were killed by Nazis. Krakow is also where Oscar Schindler had his factory and where the movie Schindler’s List was filmed. We went to the area where Schindler’s Factory is but only saw it from the outside since we read that the exhibit is not appropriate for small children. Krakow’s modern art museum (MOMAK) is located right next to the factory and we did go inside it. We all really liked the MOMAK. We noticed that a lot of exhibits were inspired by consumerism, capitalism and the environment, and we found all of them very thought provoking and interesting to explain to the kids when they asked questions.

• We visited the grounds of Wawel Royal Castle, which were stunning! We didn’t go into the castle (we read the tour was a bit long for little ones), and just walked around the gardens and the old walls. The kids loved seeing the towers, the walls and learning about the history of the castle and the city.

• One afternoon we walked over to see the fire-breathing statue of Smok, the Wawel dragon. According to legend, Smok was an evil dragon who demanded villagers bring him cows every day. If they didn’t, he’d eat people instead. Everyone was so terrorized that the King offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man who could kill the dragon. Many knights tried, but the dragon easily burned them up. Then a poor cobbler named Krak filled some dead cows with sulfur and left them outside the cave. Smok ate the cows and the sulfur ignited in his belly. He ran to the river and drank water until he exploded and died. The king married his daughter to Krak and the people were so appreciative they named the city Krakow after him. (We ended up telling this story to Hugo about one thousand times…) You can tour the cave below the castle and there is a pretty large sculpture of Smok that breathes fire at seemingly irregular intervals (every two to ten minutes or so).

• One things our kids LOVED doing was playing with the miniature bronze model of castles and such, which had been installed for the visually impaired (we also saw these in Budapest). These miniature models are designed to help visually impaired people feel and understand sites using their hands. Our kids used them as fun play structures. They used acorns as knights and small sticks as ogres and dragons. Every time we found one of those models, the kids would run to them and they would just let their imagination fly.

Krakow was also a very easy city to get around. There are tram stops everywhere and the trams are running constantly. We never had an issue going anywhere or coming back home. The trams are very modern and they all had AC, which was a life-safer given the heatwave that’s affecting Europe right now.

Overall, it was a neat city, but not one that we really “vibed” with. We were happy to check out the sights, but were also ready to move on and escape the crowds!