Underground - A World Wrested from Darkness

The Tatra Museum’s main building, at 10 Krupówki Street in the centre of Zakopane, goes underground with a temporary show on caves, old mine adits and the creatures that live without light. The curator is Dr Marcin Warchałowski, head of the museum’s Natural History Department, and the show runs from 16 May 2026 to 28 February 2027. The museum publishes no English text on it; the translation of its Polish description below is ours.

Tatra Museum on the exhibition:

The underground is not only cellars, grottoes, bunkers, adits or caves. Above all it is a mysterious world governed by entirely different rules, a kind of hidden Atlantis. Lands where, in absolute darkness, unknown organisms live. The name also covers a part of society’s activity that is hidden from everyday view and little known, activity that is incomprehensible or even outright illegal.

At the exhibition Underground - A World Wrested from Darkness, presented in the Main Building, we can explore in comfortable conditions the secrets that govern this microcosm, unknown to most of us. We will find historical, geological, zoological, botanical and even technical threads in it. We will learn not only how caves formed, or why adits were dug in the Tatras, but also who explored them and how life adapted to these hostile conditions.

What to expect

The core is natural history, but geology, the history of cave exploration and traces of human work below ground sit alongside the animals. The 24tp.pl reporter describes a darkened interior entered through a first room with an introductory text. The headline of his opening-night report spans the collection from the cave bear to the tiny antlion, and the article adds bats and salamanders.

There are also tits (the songbirds), which the reporter calls “horrible” before sending readers to the video with the curator for the reason why. Watch it before you go: the clip is the quickest way to see inside the show in advance, even if you do not follow the Polish commentary.

In its report on the opening the museum lists where this underground journey leads: to caves and adits, but also to bunkers. The show opened on 16 May 2026, during the Night of Museums, when the curator led two tours of it; on 5 September he also hosted a Bat Night here.

The show takes up part of the main building, whose ground and first floors hold the permanent exhibition on the ethnography and nature of the Tatras. Combine the two: the natural history floor, with its dioramas and raised relief map of the Tatras, is the natural lead-in to the caves.

Context

In December 2020 the Polish side of the Tatras had 862 known caves with a combined length of over 135 km, the great majority of them in the Western Tatras. Only a handful are open to visitors, among them the Mroźna Cave, the Dragon’s Den (Smocza Jama), the Dziura and the Mylna, Obłazkowa and Raptawicka caves. The deepest and longest cave in Poland, Wielka Śnieżna, is a system formed by linking five caves once explored separately: 824 m deep, with over 23.7 km of passages. The adits are relics of old mining: from the late 15th century silver, copper and antimony were dug in the Kościeliska Valley, later mostly iron ore, until the ironworks closed in 1841.

Tickets and time

The exhibition has its own ticket. Underground alone costs 14 PLN, reduced 7 PLN. A ticket to the main building’s permanent and temporary exhibitions costs 34 PLN, reduced 17 PLN, and the permanent exhibition alone 26 PLN, reduced 13 PLN. If you want both, the combined ticket is cheaper than two separate ones (26 PLN + 14 PLN).

The price list does not say whether the combined ticket covers both of the building’s temporary shows, so ask at the desk. With the Large Family Card (Karta Dużej Rodziny) entry to all exhibitions in the building costs 10 PLN per person. Residents of nine nearby municipalities and towns, Zakopane and Nowy Targ included, pay 1 PLN. A weekly ticket to all open branches costs 69 PLN, reduced 34 PLN; groups of 15 or more pay 13 PLN per person.

The free Thursday does not cover this show. The museum announces Thursday as free admission to the permanent exhibitions and says nothing about temporary ones. On our reading of the museum’s price list , Underground needs a ticket on Thursdays too.

No online tickets. The museum sells no tickets online and takes no bookings for unguided visits; entry is first come, first served, depending on how busy the town is. A guided tour costs 90 PLN and must be arranged in advance at gmachglowny@muzeumtatrzanskie.pl ; an audio guide is 5 PLN.

The main building is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00-18:00 (10 AM to 6 PM), last entry at 17:15, and closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The museum publishes a single timetable with no seasonal variation.

Allow 30-45 minutes for the show alone and about two hours with the permanent exhibition; that is our estimate, as the museum gives no visit time. It is best for families with children who like animals and for hikers who know the Tatra caves only from outside or from the short route through the Mroźna Cave. Anyone curious about why the Tatras are riddled with adits will get the answer here. If you came to the Tatra Museum for art or folk culture, skip it without regret.

English on site: the museum states nothing about English labels, and its 5 PLN audio guide is not described by language. Expect Polish captions; the specimens speak for themselves, the explanations do not.

Events

• 25 September 2026, 12:00 and 13:30 - “Kości zostały rzucone” (“The Bones Are Cast”), a session on animal skeletons with Dr Marcin Warchałowski (Małopolska Researchers’ Night). Two one-hour sessions, age 12 and up, free, booking at wydarzenia@muzeumtatrzanskie.pl - programme . The exhibition page gives 26 September, but the Researchers’ Night programme and the museum’s September calendar both say Friday 25 September.
• 3 October 2026, 12:00 - a tour of the show with the curator, Dr Marcin Warchałowski, part of the Seniors’ Weekend with Culture, free - October programme .

What the press says

Two local pieces, neither judging the display; 24tp.pl and Tygodnik Podhalański are the show’s media patrons.

reporter.zakopane.pl (30 April 2026, krystian, based on the museum’s material): a preview which points out that the show presents not only underground places but also the processes that shaped them - article, in Polish .

24tp.pl (16 May 2026, Rafał Gratkowski): an opening-night report with video, in which the reporter walks through the darkened interior and lists the animals the show covers - article, in Polish , photo gallery .

See also

• Tatra Museum profile - the permanent exhibition in the same building, with its natural history floor, dioramas and Tytus Chałubiński’s own collections, plus hours, prices and directions.
• Tatra National Park Nature Education Centre - about 1.7 km from Krupówki, a 20-25 minute walk uphill along Chałubińskiego Street, with a mock cave where you hear water dripping.
• Ojców National Park Museum - a reconstructed cave with bat calls and display cases holding cave bear remains.
• Wieliczka Salt Mine - for anyone this show leaves wanting to go underground for real: a tourist route through the salt mine.

Museum profile: Tatra Museum in Zakopane .