St Mary’s Basilica - One of the Architectural Marvels of Krakow City in Poland

When in Krakow city of Poland, exploring Market Square is a must and while in Market Square, you can't miss this beautiful architecture standing tall on one side of the square - St Mary’s Basilica. This post would talk about the ways to reach St Mary’s Basilica, what to do around the market Square of Krakow city in Poland, some specific timings to visit the place to enjoy special stuff/events and more things to do around St Mary’s Basilica in Krakow. And as we progress, we may have much more to share and we love interacting through comments for specific questions, like how much time should spend around Market Square when there are 3 days to explore Krakow. 

If you have gone through some of the earlier posts on the blog about Krakow City and it's main places to explore, St Mary's Basilica is close to Planty Park. Actually Planty park surrounds this old part of the Krakow city and Market Square is easily accessible from various parts of Planty Park. St Mary’s Basilica is also pretty close to the railways station, so if you like this can be first place you would want to explore after getting down from the train. You can easily walk by following the GPS directions and you would cross Planty Park on the way. 


You may want to check-out - Planty Park - Well located park in Krakow to offer diverse experience of this Historical City

St Mary’s Basilica is built in the 14th century with its foundations date back to the early 13th century and it serve as one of the best examples of Polish Gothic architecture. This place is one of the most crowded places in Krakow city because almost every tourist who land in the city visits St Mary’s Basilica and the Market Square. As you can make out from above photograph that place is full of people, small kiosks and there are few museums around this place, so you would also see groups of students who come with guides to learn about the history of the city and how different parts of the Poland were impacted in different phases in the past.  

As we entered into the Market Square we heard lot of people grouping around St Mary’s Basilica and there was some sort of music playing. As we went closer, it stopped. After checking more, we got to know that every hour, a trumpet signal is played from the top of Saint Mary's two towers. This trumpet is called as Hejnał mariacki. The plaintive tune breaks off in mid-stream, to commemorate the famous 13th century trumpeter, who was shot in the throat while sounding the alarm before the Mongol attack on the city. More details around it and the photographs can be checked here. 

As you can make out in the photographs, it's pretty high and the height is around 262 feet. St Mary’s Basilica is particularly famous for its wooden altarpiece carved by Veit Stoss. The building in the middle of Market Square houses different shops, restaurants and museums and there are galleries with beautiful arches and designs. Above photograph is clicked by making one of the arches a frame and there is something special about the designs on these pillars which I would be sharing in the blogpost about Market Square and it's architectural marvels. 

When in Krakow, don't miss -  Vistula River Boulevards - Must visit place when in Krakow city of Poland

Saint Mary's Basilica has also served as an architectural model for many of the churches that were built by the Polish diaspora abroad, particularly those like Saint Michael's and Saint John Cantius in Chicago, designed in the Polish Cathedral style. Architecture in Poland is certainly very inspiring and Travellingcamera loved clicking lot of beautiful buildings in Poland and more blog-posts would follow. 

More from Poland here.

We didn't go inside the Bacilica as we were in the town for one day and wanted to explore the breadth of the place and couldn't afford to spend lot of time at one place. Which is also a good reason for me to plan another visit to Krakow city of Poland in Europe. If you plan to go inside the Basilica, there is an entry ticket and the charges are -

Adults - 10 PLN (0.25 Euro & 200 Rs.)
Senior Citizen - 8 PLN
Children & Students - 5 PLN

European Diaries on Travellingcamera

There are different timings to visit on different days, especially on Sundays and holidays. So please do checkout the timings before planning a visit. 

While roaming around St Mary’s Basilica, you would notice lot of people walking around the market square and clicking photographs of the beautiful church. During the same time, you would notice people from different parts of the world walking around the square in different dresses. We will certainly be doing a special post on fashion we observed in Poland. In above photograph, this lady was in a group of 3 couples wearing very interesting dresses and we sensed that they were from some royal family, as there were always few folks attending them. All these experiences and views take you to a different world where royalty is still a big thing. 

Half part of the church is open for touri­sts, which includes the pres­by­te­ry and its main altar. Admis­sion to this part of the Basi­li­ca is based on admis­sion tic­kets which you can buy from the counter. The second part of the church with the main entran­ce is limi­ted to per­so­nal pray­er in front of the Eucha­rist exhi­bi­ted in the mon­stran­ce and to con­fes­sion.

Do check out more Architectural Marvels here. 

If you are really interested in History and love exploring places with right context about the past, it's highly recommended to have a guide to explore this part of Krakow City. Just ensure that you need enough time to explore it well as each part of these buildings have something to share. Apart from that museums around this place gives even better sense about the historical events and how this part of the city was used by various generations. 

We loved roaming around St Mary’s Basilica and the Market Square and interestingly we ended up coming here towards the end of our day. We came here in the evening, spent fe minutes and then headed towards the Railway station to go back to Warsaw. 

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If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -

1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter
2. Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite