Kraków beyond Wawel: a mound, a city under the square and a former power station
Thousands of people spent three years carrying soil from Kościuszko's battlefields to raise a mound without a single gram of mortar; a medieval town lies under the square, uncovered only in 2005; and a former power station in Podgórze now holds one theatre's archive.
- Kościuszko Mound
- €7.76, open every day
- Rynek Underground
- €10.27
- Cricoteka
- €9.13
All three sites sit outside the loop that runs from Wawel to the square, and each carries a story the façade doesn't tell on its own: a nation that raised a hill instead of the monument the occupier forbade, a town buried under its own cobbles, and a theatre archive moved into a factory that no longer runs.
1. Kościuszko Mound — earth carried from the battlefields
Tadeusz Kościuszko died in 1817, and Poles under Austrian rule weren't allowed to raise him a monument in the city itself, so they raised one above it. From 1820 to 1823 thousands of volunteers carried soil from every part of partitioned Poland and from the battlefields where Kościuszko led his uprisings — Racławice, Szczekociny, even from the United States, where he had once fought. The mound duplicates two prehistoric mounds already standing in Kraków, Krakus and Wanda, and stands 34 metres tall.
The view from the top runs over the whole valley the city sits in; entry is €7.76, none.
2. Rynek Underground — a town uncovered only in 2005
The mound looks down over the city from above; the second part of the story lies underfoot, right on the Main Square. When the square needed repaving, archaeologists in 2005 came across layers of medieval Kraków — stalls, streets, foundations — preserved under the cobbles because the square had only ever been built over through the centuries, never fully dug up. The museum now sits beneath the square itself, multimedia-driven, with the original remains left where they were found.
A ticket runs €10.27, the museum is closed every second Monday of the month, and booking is recommended.
3. Cricoteka — a theatre archive in a former power station
The third site is further out than the first two — across the river. Tadeusz Kantor was a painter and theatre director whose company, Cricot 2, performed across Europe; after his death in 1990 the archive got a permanent home in 2014, in Podgórze, on the site of a city power station from 1900. The old building was kept, and a new gallery hovers above it, clad in rusted steel — architecture that quotes Kantor's own stage design.
A ticket here runs €9.13, and the museum is closed Monday.
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Is Tadeusz Kościuszko buried in the mound?
No — he's buried in the crypt of Wawel Cathedral. The mound is a monument made from soil carried from his battlefields.
When was the Rynek Underground discovered?
In 2005, during repaving work, when archaeologists came across layers of the medieval town beneath the cobbles.
Why is Cricoteka in a power station?
Because the old city power station from 1900 in Podgórze was converted in 2014 into Tadeusz Kantor's archive, with a new gallery built above it.
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