As you might suspect, Poland has a whole series of customs and traditions surrounding Easter, which range from pious to playful, to downright pagan. As a deeply Catholic country, Polish Easter traditions (PL:Wielkanoc) are taken very seriously. In fact, Easter in Poland is arguably the most important holiday of the year for the nation's most devout, but also an important time for more secular Poles to spend with family, regardless of their religious views.
WHEN IS EASTER CELEBRATED IN POLAND?
In 2026, Easter Sunday in Poland will be celebrated on the 5th of April, making Easter Monday April 6, 2025. These two days are official public holidays in Poland, and as such, you can expect all shops - and many restaurants and bars (particularly on Sunday) - to be closed on these two days.
However, the Easter season in Poland starts earlier, with a festive holiday vibe establishing itself in the week leading up to Palm Sunday (March 29, 2026) one week earlier (read on).
HOW IS EASTER CELEBRATED IN KRAKÓW, POLAND?
Palm Sunday (Niedziela Palmowa)
The beginning of the Easter holiday season is around the time you'll start seeing traditional handmade ‘palms’ for sale in Kraków’s market square, particularly during the annual Easter Fair (March 26 - April 06, 2026) in the days before Palm Sunday (March 29, 2026) - the Catholic holiday so named for the palm branches laid on the ground before Jesus on his entrance into Jerusalem. As the Polish climate isn’t particularly conducive to palm trees, Polish Catholics invented their own ‘palms’ - essentially elaborately handwoven wands made from a variety of dried flowers and plants. Rather than trample them, however, Poles take their palms to church on Palm Sunday, in order to have them blessed before they decorate the home for the season.
If you are in Małopolska on Palm Sunday, consider a trip out to the village of Lipnica Murowana, 30km east of Kraków, where an annual palm competition keeps the folk tradition of making these decorations alive and well. Each year some 15,000 people gather in the tiny town to enjoy the festival atmosphere, see palms that reach heights of over 30m, and have their own palms blessed in a morning mass service on Lipnica’s market square. [Another reason to make the trip to Lipnica is the UNESCO-listed St. Leonard’s Church - one of Małopolska’s oldest and most beautiful wooden churches.]
Good Friday
As any true Polish mother will attest, you can’t bring an Easter palm home to a dirty domicile, and the week leading up to Easter Sunday is traditionally a time of spring cleaning, as well as attending mass (again on Thursday to remember the Last Supper, and on Good Friday to attend stations of the cross).
If you're in the region, another big event to be aware of is the annual Passion Play at the historic pilgrimage site of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska - a UNESCO World Heritage Site just 35km from Kraków. This dramatic performance - carried out over the course of Holy Week beginning on Palm Sunday - brings the events of Jesus Christ’s final days to life amid the scenic hills, chapels and shrines of the vast pilgrimage park. Performed by local participants and seminarians, the Passion Play reaches its dramatic climax on Good Friday during the solemn Way of the Cross procession, drawing large crowds of visitors from Poland and beyond.
Easter Saturday
Another big tradition is the decorating of Easter eggs. Known as ‘pisanki,' eggs are hard-boiled, dyed (traditionally with onion skins) and then hand-decorated by families in the lead-up to Easter Saturday. On Saturday, these eggs are added - along with other small portions of food that will be eaten the following morning: sausage, bread, salt, beets, horseradish, and a symbolic ram made of dough - to traditional Easter baskets and taken to church to be blessed.
On Kraków's market square each year at 12:00 noon on Holy Saturday, a big outdoor Easter Basket Blessing (Święcenie Pokarmów) is held each year near St. Mary's Basilica, where anyone can join to have their Easter baskets (or whatever else they want) blessed by priests.
In the evening keep an eye and an ear out for orderly crowds walking through the streets crying “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Known as 'Rezurekcja' (Resurrection), this processional mass often features torches, tall crosses and loud speakers, and is held either Saturday night or Easter morning depending on parish tradition.
