Rynek Underground tickets: 45 PLN at the museum, free on Tuesdays from 10:00 to 15:00, and closed on the second Monday of the month

💡 The Short Version: The Museum of Kraków sells entry at 45 PLN (about £8.50) at the box office at Rynek Główny 1 and online at bilety.mhk.pl. Tuesday is free, but the museum opens only from 10:00 to 15:00, and the free tickets are collected at the box office on the day. It is closed on the second Monday of every month: 12 October, 9 November and 14 December. Allow 75 minutes. A look-alike site tops the search results and charges €18 (about £15) for the same entry. Or book a tour: GetYourGuide’s Rynek Underground guided tourad (from £30, 1.5 to 2 hours) puts a guide in the museum.

The tickets, compared

Prices are from the Museum of Kraków’s branch page, at about 5.15 PLN to the pound. The museum’s ticket shop is bilety.mhk.pl.

• The Kraków Card gives free entry once. See the Kraków Card guide.
• A “Medieval Kraków” route ticket covers the Underground, the Town Hall Tower, the Barbican and the City Defence Walls. The museum lists it on its route page.
• Online tickets carry the visit time. The museum says visitors who do not book or buy in advance may be unable to get in.
• Box-office tickets are not refundable. Online tickets are refundable under the museum’s online terms.

How to buy

• At the museum: the box office is at Rynek Główny 1, with the entrance opposite Szewska Street. The museum recommends paying by card.
• At the Visitor Centre: it sells tickets from the Krzysztofory Palace, Rynek Główny 35.
• Online: at bilety.mhk.pl. The ticket sets your visit time.
• On Tuesdays: free tickets are collected at the box office on the day. One person can collect five. There is no booking.

Tours worth paying for

The museum’s own ticket is enough for most visitors, and its exhibition carries multimedia in several languages. The products below are on GetYourGuide, which is not the museum’s shop. Prices are its lowest “from” prices, per person.

A guided tour of the Underground

From £30 · 4.6 stars from 1,442 reviews · 1.5 to 2 hours

Krakow: Rynek Underground Museum Guided Tourad is a skip-the-line guided tour of the museum. The museum’s own ticket is 45 PLN (about £8.50), and its fee for a guide for a whole group is 350 PLN, so the price above is for the guide.

The skip-the-line version

From £30 · 4.6 stars from 170 reviews · 1.5 to 2 hours

Krakow: Rynek Underground Museum Skip-the-Line Guided Tourad is a guided tour in which groups of 15 or more use headsets.

The glass walkway through the excavations under the Main Market Square. Photo: Adrian Grycuk, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl.

What to see

The museum sits under the Main Market Square, in the excavations of 2005 to 2010. The exhibition is a fixed route that takes about 75 minutes, and it tells the story of the square from the 10th century to the city’s charter in 1257.

1. The first settlement. A cemetery stood here from the 10th century, followed by a craftsmen’s settlement that the Mongol invasion of 1241 ended.
2. The medieval market. You walk past the remains of medieval buildings, the foundations of the Cloth Hall and fragments of medieval roads, with cross-sections of the soil layers.
3. The objects. The cases hold tools, jewellery, toys, footwear, armour, coins, seals and merchants’ weights. The museum names a silver denarius of Władysław Łokietek with St Stanislaus on it, a 14th-century silk purse, a lead block of almost 700 kg, and an 11th-century pendant and cross from Byzantium.
4. The models and screens. Models show Kraków around 1500 and St Mary’s Basilica at stages of its building, and the exhibition has 37 touchscreens, 4 holograms and 98 speakers.

An exhibition hall of the Rynek Underground. Photo: Adrian Grycuk, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl.

What to skip: nothing, because the route is fixed. On a Tuesday, arrive by 13:40, since the museum closes at 15:00.

Hours, rules and getting there

• Last entry: the visit takes about 75 minutes, so arrive at least 80 minutes before closing.
• Closed: 12 October, 1 November, 9 November, 11 November, 16 to 18 November, 14 December, and 24 and 25 December 2026. It opens from 10:00 to 15:00 on 31 December and from 10:00 to 18:00 on 26 December.
• Bags: no rucksacks or luggage over 30 litres, and no long umbrellas.
• Inside: no flash photography, no food or drink, no phone calls, and no re-entry once you leave.
• Getting there: the entrance is on the Main Market Square at Rynek Główny 1, opposite Szewska Street.

The Main Market Square guide covers the Cloth Hall, the Town Hall Tower and the other sights round it, and St Mary’s Basilica is a minute away. The Underground is on the Kraków Card, and free on Tuesdays with the other sights in free museum days in Kraków. Wawel Castle is a 10-minute walk, and museums in Kraków covers the rest. For the rest of the city’s bookings, see what to book before you go to Kraków. 3 days in Kraków and Kraków in one day build the plan round the closed days. To sleep nearby, hotels near the Main Market Square lists the hotels beside it, and where to eat in Kraków lists places to eat. Kraków walking tours start from the square.