Museum of the Cistercian Abbey in Szczyrzyc

What to expect

Short answer for anyone weighing a trip out of Kraków: not for the museum, not right now. The abbey’s own notice says the Cistercian Abbey Museum has been closed since 8 March “until further notice” for building work, without giving a year or a reopening date. What still runs is a guided walk of about 40 minutes through the abbey church, the garden and St Stanisław Square.

Is that walk worth the journey? Yes, if a Cistercian community that, by its own account, has existed in the region without a break since 1234 interests you in its own right. Yes, too, if you want a quiet half day in the hills south-east of Kraków with a bag of monastery beer on the way home. No, if the photo of sabres and swords above is why you came - that room is behind the closed door.

This is a working monastery, and the enclosure where the monks live stays off limits, as one TripAdvisor reviewer points out. The church is also the parish church and a Marian shrine. On your own you usually see its interior from behind a grille; the guided walk takes you inside, according to the travel blog PolskieSzlaki.

For the day the museum reopens, here is what waits inside. The armoury puts a Japanese katana and a Malay kris next to 16th-century chainmail. Around them: coins from the reign of Władysław Jagiełło to 1918, a mammoth tooth and a copy of a medieval world map with Jerusalem at its centre. A lower room collects old labels of the local beer and mementoes of Władysław Orkan, a Polish writer who went to the monks’ school here.

Before the closure the museum was shown only on tours led by a monk, and one reviewer found the display a bit chaotic. The regional tourist portal VisitMałopolska still lists the tour times from before the closure; they no longer apply.

Anything in English? The abbey website has a history page in English and ten other languages; the museum and visiting pages are in Polish only. The abbey says nothing about the language of its guided walks, so ask when you phone.

Tips

• Phone ahead, or email. No times for the guided walk and no prices are published. The switchboard is +48 18 332 00 04 (museum extension 12); groups book through the curator on +48 519 032 453. If Polish on the phone is a hurdle, write to szczyrzyc@diecezja.tarnow.pl .
• Add the Devil’s Stone. Diabli Kamień, the boulder that the devil, in the local legend, was forced to abandon short of the abbey, lies in Krzesławice, 3 km away; the A8 bus passes through the village.
• Come in the Christmas season with children. From 25 December to 2 February a live nativity scene stands next to the church, 10:00-18:00.
• Beer, yes; brewery tour, groups only. The Cistercian brewery shows itself only to large groups who book on +48 505 421 702. Everyone else buys at the monastery shop, open Monday to Saturday 9:00-17:00 and Sunday 13:30-17:00.
• Check the holiday calendar. The shop closes at Easter, Christmas, Corpus Christi, All Saints’ Day and on 1 January - a visit on those days ends without the shopping stop.
• Time your visit around Mass. Sunday Masses are at 7:00, 8:30, 10:00, 11:30 and 16:00, plus 19:00 in July and August. The 7:00 Sunday Mass and the 6:45 weekday Mass are in Latin.
• Accessibility is not documented. The museum publishes no accessibility information - call before visiting.

Getting there

Szczyrzyc is 36 km south-east of Kraków’s Main Square as the crow flies, in the Stradomka valley at the edge of the Beskid Wyspowy hills.

By train and bus: there is no direct bus from Kraków. Take a Koleje Małopolskie train to Wieliczka Rynek-Kopalnia, the salt-mine town. The Wieliczka Centrum Dworzec bus stop is right by the station; regional line A8 towards Pogorzany reaches Szczyrzyc in 72 minutes. It makes 11 runs to Pogorzany on weekdays and four on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, so check the Koleje Małopolskie timetable before you commit.

Coming back: trains from Wieliczka Rynek-Kopalnia to Kraków leave every half hour. Line A49 also runs from Dobczyce directly to Kraków (Os. Podwawelskie) if you change there. Without a car, treat Szczyrzyc as a full day.

By car: about 40 km, according to the travel blog Plan na wypad: road 964 to Dobczyce, then right at Czasław towards Raciechowice and on to Szczyrzyc. There is a large free car park by the abbey, and the shop stands on it, behind the parish building.

Nearby

Want a monastery museum you can actually walk into this season? The Tyniec Benedictine Abbey Museum on the edge of Kraków is the safer bet: another working abbey, but one with published opening hours.

The bus to Szczyrzyc starts in Wieliczka, which makes the salt mine the obvious morning half of a car-free day. The underground route of the Cracow Saltworks Museum in Wieliczka is open, while its castle above ground is under renovation until the end of 2028.

Orkan’s mementoes are locked away in Szczyrzyc for now. The Władysław Orkan Museum in Rabka-Zdrój , 26 km away as the crow flies, carries his name, although what you see there is mostly regional folk art in an early 17th-century wooden church.

Background

The Cistercians came from Jędrzejów at the invitation of Teodor, palatine of Kraków, and settled first in Ludźmierz, below the Tatras, in 1234. According to Wikipedia they most likely moved to Szczyrzyc in 1243. The abbey counts its unbroken presence from 1234.

Under the partitions of Poland the monks lost their land but ran a village school; Orkan was one of its pupils. During the Second World War the abbey sheltered refugees and held secret classes, and it was later awarded the Virtuti Militari cross.

Abbot Stanisław Kiełtyka founded the museum in 1954 to save the abbey’s sacred art, and it became a branch of the Diocesan Museum in Tarnów. In 1984 it moved into a rebuilt granary that had turned out, during the works, to be the old abbot’s residence.