On Sunday, 11 May, hundreds of people took an opportunity to visit the visit the unique and magical Jagiellonian Universtiy sites, where history meets the present, from the medieval Collegium Maius and the old University courtyards to Collegium Novum. Guides and custodians of the Jagiellonian University Museum took the visitors on a journey through 650 years of history and science.

The tour consisted of two separate programmes: the Tour through the Old University Courtyards to Collegium Novum, which included the meeting at Huta Courtyard (ul. Św. Anny 10), the passage to Collegium Novodvorscianum, then to Arcade Courtyard (watching the clock and listening to the carrillon), passage through the Long Hallway to the Professors' Garden, listening to the account of the history of the University Quarter, walk to the Oak of Liberty, visit in the room 56 (which witnessed the arrest of university Professors by Nazi Germans during the infamous Sonderaktion Krakau), and in the Assembly Hall of Collegium Novum.
The participants of the second, shorter walk visited the main rooms of Collegium Maius: Libraria, where the university book collection used to be kept, the representative Stuba Communis, where the professors dined in the past, the Jagiellonian University Treasury, where the most precious relics of the University are kept, including its oldest insignia, and the beautiful Jagiellonian Aula, where many eminent people, including Pope John Paul II received an honorary degree.

The number of visitors interested in taking the tour was much higher than the number of places in the groups. Those who took the tour were usually very enthusiastic about it.

"We are very grateful that we could see the sites related to the life and history of the Jagiellonian University. Today, we need to come back to our roots, and it is here that we could find lots of information about what shaped our identity," said Mr Krzysztof Tomaszewski, an artist from Kraków.

Photos by Filip Radwański