Krakow

Krakow is the classic tourist destination in Poland. It is not short of daytime activities: the amazing salt mines and the Auschwitz concentration camps both make a day trip, and the old town and castle provide a couple of days of looking around. As a top tourist destination and student city, the nightlife is also not sluggish - you shouldn't find it too difficult to have a few good nights out. The accomodation is also excellent here. If you want to experience Poland and only have time to visit one place it should definately be Krakow.

Climate and weather

Krakow is subject to much the same extremes of temperature as the rest of Poland. Summers can be shocking warm and close, and winter bitterly cold and windy. The best thing to do on a really uncomfortable day is to go round the salt mines, which are a constant 15 degrees celsius.

Although the new bus station is indoors, the train station platforms are pretty exposed, and other bus stops and shopping streets are completely exposed. Basically even if you just stay in your accomodation the entire time, you are still going to need a decent coat, scarf, gloves, hat and preferably portable blast furnace in winter for when you arrive.

Landscape and scenery

Krakow has a largely intact old town (compared to the rest of Poland, which was brutally attacked during the German occupation). This includes an impressive castle (which was the original seat of the Polish monarchy), the largest market square in central Europe, and even an intact jewish quarter. The Wistula river which winds through the centre of the town is not nearly as grim and brown as it is by the time it reaches Warsaw, and provides a quite pleasant waterfront. The town outside of the historic area offers rather less - the new town has been built in typical grey eastern-bloc style, with almost no buildings of particular note. Even the greyness is not that noteworthy, since cities such as Warsaw and Katowice have even greyer and larger suburbs.

Carry on an hour or so to the south of the city and the mountains which more the border with the Czech Republic and Slovakia are huge and beautiful, with plenty of walking and pretty good winter sports (although the resorts are more full of Polish than international visitors, so language remains an issue). The area directly around Krakow is a little less inspiring, being a little flat. It is nice enough though once you have escaped the suburbs.

Language

As one of the top student cities and the top tourist destination, English is fairly widely-spoken in Krakow compared to most other areas of Poland. Tourist establishments, including most reasonably sized restaurants and bars will have somebody on the staff who can talk something that sounds like English. Outside of the tourist centre you are likely to find more trouble if you don't speak Polish. You are never far from an English speaker however, and most are more than willing to help translate. German and Russian may be worth a try as a last resort.

Shop opening

Shops in the old town in Krakow (on the streets that radiate out from the market square open late and close even later. The proper shops, which are mostly located just the west of the old town are open from about 9 or 10am to around 6 at night. Sunday sees less shops open than weekdays, though you are unlikely to find yourself stuck for essentials

Crime and punishment

Crime.

Most of the tourist centre in Krakow seems pretty unthreatening - there are not even many dodgy characters hanging around, except perhaps at the train station. As usual though, it best to keep one eye on the people around you and the area you are wondering into, particularly if you are alone after dark.

Arriving by Plane.

Krakow Airport is one of the largest in Poland, and one of the largest for economy flights from the rest of Europe. It is located under 30 minutes from the city centre by bus (municipal buses depart two or three times an hour from outside the terminal building, going right round the outside of the old town and past the train station, which is the easiest place to get off. Tickets can be bought from the driver, but probably not if the smallest note you have is a 50, so it might be a good idea to buy something in the terminal if you have no small notes.

Krakow is a pretty cheap destination for budget flights, but if you are having trouble finding a cheap flight, bear in mind that train travel is not expensive in Poland, and it is easy to travel here from Warsaw or Katowice. See the main Poland section for more details.

Arriving By Train.

Krakow is one of the two southern destinations of Poland's "high speed" line. This means that trains run every couple of hours to Warsaw travelling much faster than old man with a zimmer frame. The journey takes around two hours and 45 minutes and costs around 85 zloty. Be sure to buy your ticket from the Intercity windows at the station, and bear in mind that you must book a seat before you board, even if you have a railpass. If, like much of the British parliament in the 1850s, you believe that travelling faster than 50 miles an hour will most certainly result in death, you may appreciate the more sedate regional service. This costs around 44 zloty and runs three times daily taking around 5-6 hours. Tickets for this should be bought from any non-intercity window, and it is certainly best to write down the departure and arrival times on a piece of paper, since the clerks will be very keen to put you on a fast train. Several of these trains carry on to destinations such as Gdansk in the north and Bydgoszcz in the East. See the PKP website for further details.

The main international services to Krakow are a night train to Prague, and day and night trains to Berlin (around 10-11 hours in both cases. 75 euros to Berlin at December 2006). More regular services run from Warsaw to destinations in the south of central Europe, and you can usually connect into these trains at Katowice using one of the Krakow to Katowice. As usual, the Deutsche Bahn website provides the most comprehensive details of international trains.

The station you want to get off at is Krakow Glowny (meaning main). This is the one in the town centre, and is the usual chaos of ugly platforms and street vendors. The main exit is through the original station building, which is some distance down an outdoor walkway from the platforms - the perfect welcome when you arrive at 6am on a cold winters day. For the bus station head out of the subway in the opposite direction from the main building and keep walking for around 50 metres.

Arriving By Coach.

PKS, the Polish national bus company run coaches from various destinations in southern Poland to Krakow. They are not much cheaper than trains though, and mostly only run from godforsaken rural backwaters, so you would need a very good reason to be on one...

Internet

Internet Cafes

Simple Internet have a 24 hour internet cafe on the market square which offers pretty cheap internet - particularly late at night. The terminals are nothing special but have basic facilities. If this is too busy (it can be during the day) or not close enough, there are plenty of others scattered around. Look for one with the prices in the window, and don't be scared to speak to staff in English. The going rate is around 4 zlotys an hour (often with a 1 hour minimum), so don't let yourself be fleeced.

Gay and lesbian travellers

In response to a conference covering homosexuality at the end of 2005, the station at Krakow was covered in posters demanding a stop to this "homosexual deviancy", with handy little pictograms so that even foreign "deviants" would get the message. Welcome to Poland, a country which is often quite forward about being backward. As usual there is a small and somewhat embattled but increasingly self confident gay community in Krakow. But don't expect any kind of welcome from the population at large.

Hostels

There is a large number of backpackers passing through Krakow, and a large number of travellers also decide to take advantage of low Polish prices to hang around and learn Polish for a month or so. Between them they are able to support a whole range of hostels which open year round offering accomodation for around the 40 zloty mark (slightly more in summer). Dizzy Daisy run three year-round hostels in Krakow, the best of which is the one on Pedzichow (the reviews of Dizzy Daisy hostels on some hostel sites are quite strange incidentally because they have been attached to the wrong hostel). Otherwise the quality is quite variable. Two of the hostels with a good reputation are Mama's Hostel and Nathans Villa. The less highly-rated hostels have very few visitors in winter, and are therefore a less good option for meeting people. It may be a good idea to stick to the hostels nearest to the train station, as they are easier to reach with your luggage and attract the largest crowds.

It is possible to get cheaper accomodation at the Polskie Towarzystwo Schronisk Mlodziezowych (Polish Youth Hostel Association) affiliated hostels. Reviews suggest that these are a guarantee of inconvenience however, with lockouts, curfews and a total lack of atmosphere. Krakow is probably a good place to take advantage of friendly accomodation and meet some people.

Couch surfing

Like Warsaw and Prague, there are quite a lot of ex-pat British and Americans living in Krakow, less because it has large multinationals based there than because it is a good cheap place for freelancers such as writers and translators to spend their time. Many of these people are extemely enthusiastic about their adopted town and are keen to welcome visitors and show them around.

You can see plenty of interesting old buildings just by wondering around the old town Krakow for the afternoon. The other thing which is worth seeing in the city itself is the castle, and attached church. Krakow used was the capital of the country until a few hundred years ago, so there is plenty of royalty buried in the crypt (appreciably the amount of buried royalty isn't what makes a church cool in everybody's eyes, but this one has a cool tower you can climb up as well). This costs a few zlotys to go into, but is probably worth every penny. The inside of the castle itself is rather more expensive to get into, but might be worth a visit if you like that sort of thing

Just outside Krakow in