Wawel Royal Castle

Wawel Castle is something you cannot miss out on while visiting Krakow. Even if the castle is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city, Krakow Castle, charmingly situated in the bend of the Vistula River, is a great monument, one of the gems of the city and one of its top highlights.

Wawel is a picturesque hill in the center of Krakow. For hundreds of years, Krakow’s Wawel, a complex of historical monuments, was the seat of Polish rulers and their necropolis. One might say that the hill even became a center of secular and church power. The complex consists of many buildings and fortifications, the best known are the Wawel Royal Castle and the Wawel Cathedral. Some stone buildings date back to the year 970 and there are wooden parts which date to about the 9th century.       

The Krakow Castle is truly impressive, both from the outside and inside. It’s a beautifully preserved complex erected at an altitude of 228 meters above sea level. In 1978, Wawel was inscribed on the UNESCO world heritage list as the biggest gem of Lesser Poland.

When it comes to Wawel Royal Castle, there is so much more than meets the eye. This unique monument determines the Poles’ identity. It is considered to be the national and cultural symbol of Poland. It is worth mentioning that Wawel Castle offers visitors over 70 exhibition halls. Most of them are decorated in the baroque style (some of them are classicist, there are also some in the interwar period style). Among others the Wawel collection includes famous tapestries of Zygmunt August, numerous pieces of traditional furniture, clocks from the 16th century and magnificent Italian Renaissance paintings from the Lanckoronski collection. Every exhibition can be visited separately, so you can be sure you will choose something that interests you the most.