Day trip to Ojców National Park

If you are visiting Kraków for a few days and are fed up being in a city environment, a good option is to head out to Ojców National Park (Ojcowski Park Narodowy in Polish). It is much closer for trekking than Zakopane and fascinating caves, rock pillars, castles and wildlife await within its boundaries. Only 20km from Kraków, it is Poland's smallest national park and gets its name from the village of Ojców which sits at its centre. It is just over 20 square km in size, but it punches above its weight by offering a great variety of points of interest, wildlife, marked trails for trekking, archaeological sights and can be a refreshingly welcome country interlude from the hustle and bustle of the city. It is part of the Polish Jurassic Highland and, as a result, boasts weird and wonderful limestone shaped features, cliffs and around 400 caves. The main spine of the park is the Prądnik Valley. The beauty of this area is it is very rarely visited by western tourists, however, be aware that it can be busy with Poles at weekends and Polish school holidays.

Before you go, I recommend getting hold of a small laminated map of the area from one of the Empik book stores in Kraków. These maps are great for showing you the options you have in terms of coloured trails to follow and locations of the main sights. Alternatively, you can access a map of the park and trails with this link. Mapa Parku (opn.gov.pl)

Getting there

As already mentioned, Ojców is an area not hugely frequented by non Polish tourists. Having said that, there are agencies offering pricey day trips from Kraków to the park. Obviously though, if you want to go trekking or cycling, these day tours are no use. However, by public transport it is possible to get the 310 bus from Forum Przestrzenie and ask to get off at Czajowice, which is to the west of the park. There are also infrequent buses which go directly to Ojców village on weekdays from the National Museum. This link might help.

Also, at weekends, you can catch the Line LRO bus at the National Museum and it will transport you to below the castle at Ojców village. This link gives you the timetables (Click on MPK Krakow). Some of these buses have bike trailers so you can hire a bike in Kraków and take it along.

Alternatively, you can hop on one of the frequent minibuses to Skała and walk down into the Prądnik valley from there (our favourite route). These leave from the main bus station (click for example timetable) and are exceptionally good value - only about 8zl for the journey. There are also other minibuses that leave for Skała (many are going via Skała to Wolbrom or Olkusz) from the bus stances at Kraków Nowy Kleparz. Expect the journey to take about 40 to 50 minutes. For more info on this, this link is helpful.

Where to catch minibuses to Skała - Nowy Kleparz

If the idea of public transport fills you with dread, we once took an Uber to Skała, as it was a Sunday and barely any transport existed, which cost 80zl, so this could be an option as well if you are feeling flush!

If arriving from Skała, you will be dropped in the main square of the village. From the bus stop, make your way downhill in a westerly direction to the Prądnik Valley. You can move onto a side street on the right, about halfway down, to avoid being next to traffic.

Trekking trails and points of interest

When arriving at the Prądnik Valley from Skała, you now have two options. If you turn right, you can follow the red trail to the spectacular Pieskowa Skala Castle. This route also takes you past the Hermitage of Blessed Salomea Piast in Grodzisk (Pustelnia Błogosławionej Salomei), which is a church complex with a really fascinating history. Click here to find out more. Pustelnia Błogosławionej Salomei

One slight drawback with this red trail walk is that for some of it, there are small sections where you have to walk on the main road.

Pieskowa Skała castle

Red trail to Pieskowa Skała castle

The other alternative is to hang a left when you reach the Prądnik Valley from Skała and follow the red trail to Ojców village. This can be done by following the main road as this section is not so busy. On your way you will pass some watermills which in the past processed grain and timber. There are two that you can still see functioning today. You will also pass some lovely villas as you start to enter the outer edges of Ojców village itself.

Villas on the edge of Ojców village

Continue on the red trail along the road and presently you will happen upon a really bizarre sight - a church on stilts across a stream. This is commonly known as the "chapel on the water", but its proper name translates as the Chapel of St. Joseph the Craftsman (Kaplica "Na wodzie" pw. św. Józefa Robotnika). This unusual wooden structure has a fascinating history. When this area was part of the Russian Empire, Tsar Nicholas the second decreed that there should be no sacred buildings built on the land of Ojców. This was cleverly circumvented by this mini chapel being built across water.

Chapel on the water

Chapel of St. Joseph the Craftsman

From the chapel, continue a small distance along the side of the road until you reach a junction. Stay on the left and this will bring you into the main parking area for the park. Towering above are the ruins of the Kazimierzowski Castle which, although there is not a great deal to see, can be visited. Cross the car park and head to a path bringing you to a wooden bridge crossing a stream. Once across this you will be sandwiched between two hotels (Pod Kazimierzem” and “Pod Łokietkiem) that once formed a health resort. Now they house an education centre and nature museum/exhibition.

Further along the trail you will find a collection of stalls, a cellar pub/restaurant (Piwnica pod Nietoperzem) which also has outdoor seating for the finer weather, and a small shop mostly selling ice cream with erratic opening hours. During tourist season there is the possibility of hiring bikes and going on a tour from here.

From the stalls, continue making your way along the trail passing very characterful wooden buildings, a few of which offer accommodation. There are also summer terraces offering food and drinks along the way.

Characterful buildings

Summer terraces for refreshments

More characterful buildings

Eventually, you will find yourself at a junction with a couple of restaurants and a souvenir stall. To the right is a yellow trail, (we will come back to that), and in front is a pond. The trail crosses a bridge ahead of you which allows you to clamber up to a viewpoint. Alternatively, turn left to where a family run trout smokery serves up delicious freshly smoked Ojców trout as well as drinks and other refreshments. These trout are netted from some pre-war ponds nearby and this is most definitely a lovely place to chill and absorb the tranquillity of your surroundings with a beer and tasty trout.

Chilling with beer and trout

Vista from the viewpoint

Looking north from the viewpoint

Time for a beer

Trout smokery

Brama Krakowska (Kraków Gate)

From the smokery, stay on the right side of the stream passing the trout ponds. Eventually you will reach a bridge where the trail re-joins the road. Follow the road until you reach a junction where the red trail branches off to the left. Ignore this for the time being, and continue a few more metres along the road ahead. You will pass the Jaskinia Krowia or cow cave - which in the past has served as a shelter for sheep or cattle, and latterly as an ice house. Presently a grassy area opens up on your right and you arrive at the mighty Brama Krakowska or Kraków Gate. This is an impressive limestone feature consisting of a gap between two 20 metre high pillars and used to be part of the principal trading route between Kraków and Silesia. Geologists will tell you it was formed by erosion by water exploiting a crack in the rock and widening it to the current size. Local legend has it that, in fact, these two pillars are moving closer to each other and when they meet, it will be the end of the world! Hence, when visiting, you will often see sticks and branches wedged against the base of the pillars in a desperate attempt to stop them moving, thereby saving us all from certain death.

After visiting the Brama Krakowska, you have the option of continuing up the valley following a blue trail which eventually joins a black trail that will return you to the trout smokery.

Getting to the Brama Krakowska from the smokery

Grota Lokietek

If venturing up the blue trail from the Kraków Gate, you will join a black trail which transports you to the largest cave in the park. Named Łokietek's Cave or the Royal Cave, it has a total length of corridors of 320 metres and, as usual, it comes with a hearty dose of local folklore. Legend has it that King Władysław Łokietek hid in this inaccessible cave for six whole weeks after escaping from Krakow from the army of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, the Czech king (not the good king of Christmas carol fame). Apparently a spider saved his life by covering the entrance to the cave with its web. This tricked the Czech King into thinking the cave was uninhabited since the web was unbroken. Folklore aside, Łokietek's Cave itself consists of several corridors, two large halls - the Knight's Hall and the Bedroom Hall - as well as two smaller areas. Stalactites and stalagmites are on view within its twisting corridors and in more recent sobering times, these caverns provided refuge for the local population during WW2.

Find out more about Łokietek's Cave by clicking here. (You will need Google translate or something similar activated).

Source - Andrzej O Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

After visiting Łokietek's Cave, you have the option following the black trail downhill which will return you to the trout smokery.

Okopy Plateau

The alternative to hiking to Łokietek's Cave from the Kraków Gate is to retrace your route back to the road junction in the Prądnik Valley where the red trail branched off to the left, and follow it instead. This leads you further down the valley passing more characterful villas en route. You will presently reach a green trail that veers off very steeply up steps to the left. If you take this trail you will be rewarded with superb views along the Prądnik Valley north and south from viewpoints. If the weather is clear, you can even see all the way to the jagged peaks of the Tatra mountains to the south. However, this trail involves an initial steep pull until you reach the top of the Okopy Plateau - a ridge of sheer drops down vegetated limestone cliffs. At the top of the long haul upwards, there are the lumpy remains of 13th Century Wisegrod hill fort. Not really much to see of it these days unfortunately.

Looking northwards up the Prądnik valley

Looking south down the Prądnik valley

View to the Tatra mountains in the distance

Be careful!

Skała Rękawica

Continue on the green trail along the cliff tops of the Okopy Plateau until it starts to wind downwards. You will reach another viewpoint which affords a fantastic vista of one of Ojców's most famous features - Skała Rękawica, which translates as the Glove Rock. It really does resemble a giant five fingered Jurassic hand! A great spot for Instagram jolly japes.

Skała Rękawica with the Brama Krakowska in the valley below

Skała Rękawica

Essential Insta!

Jaskinia Ciemna

Making you way down from the limestone glove feature you pass Jaskinia Ciemna – The Dark Cave (can only be visited using torches and candlelight). This is also known as The Ojców Cave, and to find out more of its features and history click here. 120,000 years ago, it was home to Neanderthal humans and is one of the most important archaeological sites in Poland. Excavations have discovered more than a thousand stone tools, which you can view in the museum. To mark this discovery, you can now take a selfie with some model naked Neanderthals at the cave entrance. There are also a number of bats that inhabit the cave. In fact, Ojców national park is home to some 19 different species of them, and hence the symbol for the park is a bat.

Incidentally, if you want to go into the cave, you must go with a guide, and, unfortunately the ticket office is down in the valley 400m below.

Watch out! Neanderthals about!

Having explored the Okopy Plateau, why not return to the smokery and visit one of the little pubs and restaurants nearby? In fact, it is very nice to stay overnight in the village. There is a small amount of accommodation on offer and it can be a very relaxing and tranquil experience watching bats and listening to owls hooting, especially in quieter seasons. If you have explored all the sights above, you will need a rest and the trail listed below makes for a great second day in the park offering a way of getting back to Kraków.

Sąspowska Dolina

For an altogether more soothing experience, the yellow trail through the Sąspowska Valley (dolina) is to be recommended. It is mostly flat, so allows for you to relax as you walk absorbing the sounds of nature and a babbling brook beside you. It is well marked, but is not nearly as well trodden as the other trails in the Ojców park which helps give you a sense of peace. You can access it from the pond at the trout smokery already described, and the entrance is heralded by a tat stall. Only a few metres into this trek, you will immediately be immersed in a sense of tranquillity. Fairly near the start of the trail look out for a WW2 building hiding in the trees on your right.

WW2 bunker

Also, look carefully for trodden paths into the trees on your right as you walk. These lead to memorials for mass graves for the Ojców Jews, Poles and partisans murdered by the German Nazis. Often these people had to dig their own graves and were then shot into them.

Mass grave memorials

Partisan grave

Jewish mass grave memorial

Partisan memorial grave

Mass graves

Continuing into the Sąspowska Valley you will skip through open meadows on the valley floor and more limestone cliff features shrouded by forest. There are also some caves hidden off the trail, one of which housed the traces of the earliest human existence in the valley, but unfortunately you are not permitted to access them. However, you can look out for signs of some of the present inhabitants of the valley - beaver dams and gnawed wooden branches.

Beaver dam

The yellow trail winds its way past a few quant wooden houses and lush pastoral scenery. Be aware though, as well as beavers there are other inhabitants in this valley - wild boar. We have encountered one absolutely ginormous specimen on the trail once. Luckily it wanted to scamper as far away from us as possible the moment it sniffed us.

The best season to amble into this valley is definitely autumn. The mixed forest radiates orange, red and yellow hues, the weather can be still but pleasingly warm during the day, and trails are peaceful.

Autumn in the Sąspowska Valley

Sąspowska Valley building

Keep following the yellow trail and eventually you will arrive onto a single track tarmac road. This leads you through the village of Sąspow. Once you pass the school, there is a small park with wooden picnic areas on your right. You need to leave the road at this point and hike upwards to the church perched on the cliff above. This is the steepest part of the route but it is short and sharp! At the top you will find the pretty Church of Saint Catherine with a traditional wooden tower attached.

Wooden tower at the Church of Saint Catherine

From the church, you are once again on a single track tarmac road which winds its way over fields affording wide views to the countryside around. In spring, the air here is filled with the uplifting song of skylarks.

Eventually you reach a main road. Cross it, turn left and follow the pavement until you reach the end of the line of houses on your right. Another small road leads off downhill here and the yellow trail follows it for about one hundred metres. You must then, after the last house keep your eyes peeled for a marker pointing you to a rough track over fields on your right. Amble along this and presently you will enter a beech forest. The trail winds its way downwards into the northern end of the Prądnik Valley. On reaching the main road, turn left and you will immediately see yet another of Ojców's dramatic limestone features - Maczuga Herkulesa – The Hercules Club. This rock pillar certainly has a peculiar top heavy shape and looms up like a giant chalk coloured priapism. Of course, like everything in the Ojców park, there is a list of legends attached to it.

Maczuga Herkulesa - (MarW CC)

Pieskowa Skała Castle

Continue along the road a few hundred metres where you will be overlooked by the dramatic Renaissance Pieskowa Skała castle which is well worth a visit. It houses some exhibits from the Wawel Royal Castle Museum as well as other artefacts. In addition, it has a decent restaurant with a rooftop terrace affording stunning views over the castle itself and the surrounding forests.

Pieskowa Skała Castle

Castle reflections in the ponds below

Pieskowa Skała Castle courtyard

After your castle visit, it is now possible to get a minibus back to Kraków from a bus stop close to the carpark. There are various companies running these and the timetables from the actual stop below will give you an idea of timings (be aware - these were taken last year so there may be slight changes). The main point is that they do seem to run almost every hour up until about 6pm. Make sure you are alert at the bus stop as they do run to time and it is best to stick out your arm to hail them as they approach.