Czartoryski Museum visitor guide — everything you need to know before visiting

At a glance

Address

ul. Pijarska 15, Kraków Old Town

Open

Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00

Last entry

17:00

Closed

Mondays; Tuesdays are the free desk-only day

Entry

One date, one 10-minute slot

Audio guide

Eight languages, rented on site

Cloakroom

Free, for bags over 40 × 20 × 25 cm

Where the museum is and how to reach it

The Czartoryski Museum stands at ul. Pijarska 15, on the northern edge of Kraków's Old Town. The collection has lived in this corner of the city since 1876, when Kraków gave the Czartoryski family buildings beside St Florian's Gate and the stretch of medieval wall that still runs along Pijarska Street. Today the palace, the small former monastery known as the Klasztorek and the Arsenał together form one museum complex, run by the National Museum in Kraków.

If you are staying in the Old Town, the simplest way in is on foot through St Florian's Gate. If you are coming from further out, trams 4, 14, 18, 20 and 52 and buses 124, 152 and 424 stop at Stary Kleparz, a short walk north of the walls. Leave a little slack in your plan: your ticket is for a 10-minute slot, and you will want time for the cloakroom before it starts.

Opening hours, Mondays and holiday closures

The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, and the last visitors are let into the exhibition at 17:00, an hour before closing. It is closed every Monday. The museum asks visitors to be out by closing time, which means allowing a few minutes to collect anything you left in the cloakroom.

For 2026 the National Museum has published a short list of exceptions. All branches close on 1 November, 24 December and 25 December. On 11 November and 26 December the hours shorten to 10:00 to 16:00, and on 31 December the Czartoryski Museum opens from 10:00 to 14:00 only. Our booking calendar already greys out the closed days, and we will tell you if a short day affects the slot you choose. The 2027 list has not been published yet; we add it as soon as it is.

How the 10-minute timed entry works

Every ticket to the Czartoryski Museum carries a date and a time. Entry is organised in 10-minute slots running from 10:10 to 17:00, and on the museum's online system each slot holds only a handful of places: about eight at most when we checked in October 2026. That is why the next few days are so often full, and why a weekend in a busy month can sell out well ahead.

The slot is the moment you go through the door, not a limit on your visit. Once you are inside the 21 rooms, you can stay as long as you like until closing. The museum keeps an extra pool of tickets at its own desk, but there is no way to know in advance how many will be left on the day, so if you have travelled for the Lady, book the slot you want.

When you book with us, we reserve your date and slot on the museum's own system and then email you the e-ticket. It is a bearer ticket, so keep it to yourself until you reach the door: the museum admits the first person who shows it.

Why we never sell Tuesdays

Tuesday is the National Museum's free day. Entry to the permanent exhibitions costs nothing, and at the Czartoryski Museum it still runs on timed tickets, in limited numbers, which are handed out at the museum desk only on the day of the visit. There is nothing to buy in advance, so we do not sell Tuesday dates and our calendar closes them alongside Mondays.

If a free visit suits your plans, go early on a Tuesday and ask at the desk; just bear in mind that the number of free tickets is limited and that the best slots may already be taken when you arrive. If you would rather know your slot before you travel, choose any day from Wednesday to Sunday and we will book it for you.

Which ticket fits whom

The adult ticket suits most visitors. The reduced ticket is one combined category, and its rules are stricter than many people expect. It covers visitors over 65, pensioners, and disabled visitors together with one carer, but only if they are citizens of the European Union, the EEA or Switzerland. Teachers at schools in Poland or elsewhere in the EU and EEA qualify, and so do holders of an ISIC or Euro<26 card. On the day you must show the card or document your concession rests on, together with photo ID; a reduced ticket shown without that proof is not honoured and is not refunded.

The family ticket admits up to four people on one ticket, including at least one child under 16, all in the same slot. Children under 7 go free; tell us their ages and we add their free tickets to your booking at no charge. Pupils and students under 26 with a school or student ID can get a token-price ticket from the museum itself, including at its desk. That ticket covers the Czartoryski Museum only, and we do not sell it.

The route through the palace

The visit runs through 21 rooms on two floors of the renovated palace. It starts at the Podest, the landing where two monumental genre paintings by Jean-Pierre Norblin hang, the same Norblin who bought Rembrandt's landscape for Princess Izabela at auction in Paris. From there the rooms devoted to the Czartoryski family lead into rooms on the history of Poland, where a display case is given to the Royal Casket, Princess Izabela's collection of royal mementoes first shown in the Temple of the Sibyl at Puławy.

The second floor opens with the Antique Salon and moves on to the art of the Renaissance. From that room you pass into the one that holds Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, shown among the art of Rembrandt's time. The building has lifts to every level, so the route works for anyone who cannot manage stairs.

Standing before the Lady with an Ermine

The panel is smaller than most people expect: 54.8 by 40.3 centimetres, oil on walnut. Leonardo painted it around 1489 to 1491, when Cecilia Gallerani was about sixteen and he was working as court painter to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Her body turns one way and her head the other, as if someone just out of the frame has called her name, and the ermine turns with her.

The ermine was a symbol of purity and moderation, and its Greek name, galê, may be a quiet pun on Gallerani. Look at the hand, drawn down to the knuckles and the nails, and at the inscription in the upper left corner, which was probably added by a restorer soon after the painting reached Poland. The dark background you see today was painted over later. Only four portraits of women by Leonardo survive anywhere; the other three are Ginevra de' Benci, La Belle Ferronnière and the Mona Lisa.

Rembrandt, Raphael's empty place and the rest of the collection

From the early nineteenth century the Czartoryski family owned three European masterpieces: the Leonardo, Rembrandt's Landscape with the Good Samaritan and Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man. The Rembrandt, painted in 1638 on an oak panel, is one of only six oil landscapes he painted. It was looted in 1939 and found again after the war.

The Raphael was not. The museum still counts 329 objects and 377 gold coins that never came back from the Second World War, and the Portrait of a Young Man is the most famous of them. Around the three paintings, the collection reaches from antiquity to the nineteenth century: medieval and Renaissance painting, national memorabilia gathered by Princess Izabela, arms, applied art and the ancient-art gallery the museum calls Sources.

Bags, coats and photography

The museum's visiting rules ask you to leave backpacks, bags, suitcases and handbags larger than 40 by 20 by 25 centimetres in the cloakroom or the lockers, together with umbrellas and outer clothing. Both are free. In winter that means your coat as well, so build a few minutes into your arrival before the slot on your ticket.

Amateur photography and filming for your own use are allowed and cost nothing, as long as you use no extra lighting: no flash and no tripod. The museum can ban photography of particular objects, so check the signs in each room, including the Lady's, on the day. Photographs taken in the museum are for private use and not for publication.

Accessibility, audio guides and facilities

Every level of the museum is adapted for visitors with reduced mobility, with lifts, wide corridors and accessible toilets on the ground floor. A guide route for blind visitors is marked from the entrance, there is a talking tactile plan beside the ticket desk, and a sensory path with educational copies of selected objects runs through the rooms. There is a quiet zone, and a video guide in sign language for Deaf visitors.

Audio guides are rented at the museum in Polish, English, French, German, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian and Spanish, with separate sign-language, audio-description and family tracks; for blind visitors the audio guide is included with the ticket. The National Museum also has an app for Android and iOS. On site you will find a café, a shop, free Wi-Fi, a baby-changing room and a defibrillator.

Using your ticket at other National Museum branches

The adult, reduced and family tickets do more than open the Czartoryski Museum. Within three months of the date printed on the ticket, they also admit you to the permanent exhibitions at Bishop Erazm Ciołek Palace, the Jan Matejko House, the Józef Mehoffer House, the Emeryk Hutten-Czapski Museum with the Józef Czapski Pavilion, the Szołayski House, the Stanisław Wyspiański Museum and the Karol Szymanowski Museum in Zakopane, plus the Arms and Colour exhibition at the Arsenał. The pupil, student and under-7 tickets cover the Czartoryski Museum only.

That turns one booking into a plan for the rest of your stay. The Jan Matejko House is on Floriańska Street, a short walk from St Florian's Gate, and the Arsenał is part of the same complex as the palace. The other branches keep their own hours, and several close earlier than the Czartoryski Museum, so check each one before you set out.

Frequently asked questions