Old Synagogue, Krakow

Old Synagogue, Krakow tickets and tours: which one to book

The Old Synagogue in Krakow is no longer a place of worship but a branch of the city's historical museum, so a visit means buying a museum ticket at the desk inside. Tickets are sold on the day and cover the permanent exhibition and the former women's prayer rooms; queues are rarely long outside the summer peak. Many visitors see the building as part of a walking tour of Kazimierz, the old Jewish district, often extended across the river to the wartime ghetto in Podgorze, the ghetto heroes square and the area around the Schindler factory. Private versions of these tours, led by a licensed guide, can include entry to the Old Synagogue among their stops;

group walks usually pass it from outside and leave museum tickets to you. Some longer itineraries add a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial on another day. If you want the history of the Jewish community told in context, a guided walk is worth the price, because Kazimierz has seven historic synagogues and many smaller sites that are easy to miss. If you prefer your own pace, the synagogue stands at the southern end of Szeroka Street, about 20 minutes on foot from the Main Market Square or a few stops by tram, and the museum labels are in Polish and English.

Visiting Old Synagogue, Krakow: what to see and how to behave

The Old Synagogue is the oldest surviving synagogue building in Poland. Its origins go back to the 15th century, though the date is disputed, and after a fire it was rebuilt in about 1570 by the Italian architect Matteo Gucci in a Renaissance manner on a Gothic core. Thick walls, heavy buttresses, high windows and an attic parapet with openings for defenders made it a fortress synagogue, able to serve as a refuge for the community in times of siege. For centuries it was the religious and social heart of Jewish Krakow. In 1794 Tadeusz Kosciuszko spoke here to ask the Jewish community to support his uprising, and a plaque in the entrance records the event. During the German occupation the building was looted and used as a warehouse, and in 1943 thirty Polish hostages were shot against its wall.

It was restored between 1956 and 1959 and opened as a museum. Inside, the main prayer hall is divided by two slender columns supporting rib vaults, a Gothic arrangement rare in synagogues. At its centre stands the bimah, the reading platform, enclosed by a wrought-iron cage, and on the eastern wall the stone Aron Kodesh, the niche for the Torah scrolls. The exhibition, arranged around the life cycle and the religious year, shows ritual silver, textiles, prayer books and photographs of the pre-war community. The women's rooms, added in the 17th century, host temporary exhibitions. Photography rules are set by the museum, so check at the desk. Behave as in any memorial site: some visitors come to remember family members lost in the Holocaust.

Old Synagogue, Krakow: opening hours, ceremonies and the best time to go

As a museum branch, the Old Synagogue keeps regular daytime opening hours, with one closing day a week and a shorter schedule on some days; hours change between seasons, so check the museum's website before you go. It is closed on major public holidays. Mornings are the quietest time, before walking tours fill Szeroka Street. The calmest months are from November to March, though Krakow winters are cold.

Late June and early July bring the Jewish Culture Festival, a week of concerts, lectures and workshops centred on Szeroka Street that ends with a large open-air concert; the district is lively and crowded then, and it is a good time to see Kazimierz at its most animated. Allow about an hour for the museum. Combine it with the Remuh Synagogue and its old cemetery across the street, the Tempel and Isaac synagogues, the Galicia Jewish Museum, and the ghetto sites in Podgorze.