A 14th-century tenement two minutes from the Rynek, reopened in 2006 after a meticulous restoration that left the Renaissance ribbed vaults intact in the cellar pools and put a glass roof on the sixth floor with a direct view onto the towers of St. Mary's Basilica.
"Krakow's most considered restoration, Renaissance vaults below, a Cloth-Hall view above, and the only Old Town hotel where the elevator opens onto a stone swimming pool."
Hotel Stary occupies a tenement on Szczepańska that dates to the 14th century and stands two short blocks from Krakow's Main Market Square. The building was rebuilt in 1823 by the architect August Plasqude, who placed a figure of Mercury, the Roman god of trade, on the attic above the initials of the then-owner Aleksander Market. The structure has been many things across the centuries: a private residence, a Renaissance-period monastery, and from the 1920s the home of Pod Trzema Rybkami, a Krakow restaurant that operated continuously until the early 1990s. The current hotel opened in the summer of 2006 after a careful five-year restoration that uncovered and preserved Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classicist elements that had been hidden under successive renovations.
There are 53 rooms across six floors, each individually decorated against the building's exposed historic envelope, original beamed ceilings in some, restored vaults in others, deep window reveals onto Szczepańska or the inner courtyard throughout. The categories run from Standard at around 22 square metres to Executive Suites and the named Junior Suites at 50 square metres and above. Bathrooms are finished in Italian travertine and Bardiglio marble; the in-room linens are by Frette; the minibar is included. Floors three through five hold the larger categories with views onto the courtyard or onto the medieval Szczepański Square; the top floor is the Sky Bar and the hotel's flagship Trzy Rybki restaurant terrace.
The hotel's signature space is two floors below ground level, where the restoration uncovered a pair of vaulted Renaissance cellars. These have been converted into the only stone-walled, candle-lit swimming pools of any Krakow hotel, one heated saltwater, one freshwater, each set inside its own ribbed-vault chamber with a sauna, a steam room, and a small spa for in-house massage. Trzy Rybki (Three Little Fishes) is the fine-dining restaurant under chef Adam Chrząstowski, serving a modern Polish menu and the most carefully assembled Polish wine list in the country. The Sky Bar on the sixth floor, Krakow's first hotel rooftop bar when it opened, looks directly across at the spires of St. Mary's and the Cloth Hall.
For a stay that places the visitor inside the city's medieval fabric rather than alongside it, Hotel Stary is Krakow's strongest proposition. The position is the second proposition: 90 seconds on foot to the Rynek Główny, two minutes to the Cloth Hall, four minutes to Wawel Castle's northern approach. The hotel handles airport transfers in its own fleet of black Mercedes; the concierge holds the city's deepest table book at Cyrano de Bergerac, Pod Aniołami, and Copernicus Restaurant; and the staff still uses the building's old service-entrance corridors to keep the front-of-house circulation quiet. It is, by some distance, the best hotel in Poland.
For a Krakow anniversary the Stary's combination is hard to match anywhere in Central Europe: a dinner at Trzy Rybki, a nightcap from the Sky Bar with St. Mary's bugler call drifting up at the top of the hour, and a private candlelit swim in the Renaissance cellar pools after the spa closes for the night. Book a Junior Suite with views over Szczepański Square, the inner-courtyard categories are quieter but the historic-square outlook is the right anniversary view.
Krakow makes a quieter honeymoon than Paris or Venice, and Hotel Stary is built for the brief. The cellar pools are typically empty before 9 a.m. and after 9 p.m., the hotel will arrange a private booking for two. Trzy Rybki holds back its corner four-top under the Renaissance arch for honeymoon dinners. The Executive Suite on the fifth floor has the building's only freestanding tub set into a stone-window alcove.
The hotel is the default Krakow business address for visitors meeting at the Jagiellonian University, the National Museum, or the city's growing tech corridor in Zabłocie. The fibre WiFi runs at over 500 Mbps in every category; two of the smaller Renaissance vaults on the lower-ground floor are bookable as boardrooms for 8 and 14; Trzy Rybki is the city's most reliable working table for a host who needs to be remembered.
ul. Szczepańska 5
31-011 Krakow
Poland
Rynek Główny (Main Market Square) 1 minute on foot; Cloth Hall 2 minutes; Wawel Castle 8 minutes; Krakow Airport (KRK) 25 minutes by car
53 rooms across six floors
Standard from EUR 260 / night
Deluxe from EUR 340 / night
Junior Suite from EUR 540 / night
Executive Suite from EUR 780 / night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 12:00 PM
Building dates to 14th century; reopened as a hotel in 2006 after five-year restoration
Two Renaissance-cellar swimming pools
Trzy Rybki restaurant
Sky Bar with Cloth Hall view
Full spa with sauna and steam
Fitness centre
Fibre WiFi (500+ Mbps)
Mercedes airport transfer fleet
From EUR 260/night. Junior Suites and the Executive Suite typically book three to four months ahead for May, June and September weekends; book six months ahead for Corpus Christi (the procession crosses the Rynek directly outside) and the Krakow Film Festival in late May.
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