Kraków

  • 2.1m
  • 185 000
  • 815 €
  • 1523 h
  • John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice / 11 km

Kraków, Wzgórze Wawelskie

The Wawel Hill, with the cathedral and a former royal castle, reads like a history book: coronations, assasinations, royal weddings and burials.

Kraków has enough historical sites to keep you busy for a few days, but it does not cease to surprise with more and more new galleries, museums, bars, restaurants

Kraków, the ancient capital and former seat of kings, is the grande dame of Polish cities, one of very few that have retained an old worldly atmosphere throughout the tumultuous 20th century. It is the only Polish city that boasts a work by Leonardo – and an Old Town filled with miraculously preserved gothic and baroque churches, it has a 650-year old university, aristocratic families taking tea at the same table their grandparents took tea at with their grandparents. It is filled with Polish memorabilia. It is a city so Polish that it can make a modern Pole feel like a foreign tourist.

Kraków, Kopiec Kościuszki Kopiec Kościuszki (the Kościuszko Mound) is an artificial hill created to honour the nation’s hero over a hundred years ago. It alludes to pagan tradition of burying great heroes in tumuli. Two of them can be found in Krakow, one devoted to the legendary pagan prince Krak and the other to his daughter Wanda.

The main market square (Rynek Główny) is the city’s treasure trove, with the Virgin Mary Church (Kościoł Mariacki, famous for Weit Stoss’s spectacular gothic altar piece) and the Clothier’s Hall (Sukiennice) that houses the National Museum’s Polish painting collection. Further south, down ulica Grodzka there is Wawel hill with the former Royal Castle and the cathedral that is less a part of Kraków, and more Poland in a nut shell. Nearly a thousand years ago it became the seat of Polish kings with a castle and a cathedral.

There are at least 300 restaurants and bars of different sorts in the Old Town. But there is more waiting for you three tram stops away in Kazimierz, the former Jewish neighbourhood. In the 1990s Kazimierz underwent something of a renaissance. A plethora of new bars and cafes, and of course Jewish-themed restaurants, changed the grim streetscape. The apartments upstairs were snapped up by trendy Cracovians, then by wealthy expats and Varsovians who wanted a piece of the action for themselves. This drove away a lot of the working class population that had settled here after the war, replacing the Jewish population. By the end of the 1990s, Kazimierz officially became the new Old Town, a mandatory stop for every tourist.Life in the neighbourhood revolves around ulica Szeroka, with five old synagogues and an old market square – Plac Nowy, which is also one of the centres of nightlife in Kraków.

Kraków, Rynek Main Market Square

Kazimierz can no longer claim to be the coolest neighbourhood. Podgórze – an area across the river linked with the city proper via a spectacular new footbridge – is stealing the crown. It was immortalized by Steven Spielberg in Schindler’s List, but it was Kazimierz that benefited most from the burst of interest in Jewish culture. Typically, Podgórze’s renaissance started with an invasion of students looking for cheap accomodation, followed by bars and cafes that quickly became local institutions. Unlike in the largely gentrified Kazimierz they still rub shoulders with butcher’s shops and funeral homes. Until recently, there was only one major cultural institution in the neighbourhood. The Manggha Centre for Japanese Art and Technology, designed by Arata Isozaki, is home for a unique collection of Japanese art, given a wider audience thanks to the director Andrzej Wajda’s and his wife Krystyna Zachwatowicz’s determination and financial support. In 2011 MOCAK (The Museum of Contemporary Art Kraków) opened next door to the former Schindler factory and a museum dedicated to the avant garde theatre director Tadeusz Kantor is under construction on the river front.

Those interested in the city’s Jewish heritage should visit the memorial on Plac Bohaterów Getta – the square where Jews from Kazimierz were congregated before being sent to concentration camps. Kraków is a departure point for most of the tourists who want to visit the most (in)famous of them: Auschwitz-Birkenau, located in Oświęcim, about an hour’s drive west of the city.

Kraków, murale Driving by Krakow’s history and its protagonists: from construction workers of Nowa Huta, to pope John Paul II, to the Nobel Prize winning poet Czesław Miłosz.

 If you feel like venturing out of the comfort zone of the historical part of town, you can either head up the river to the Benedictine abbey in Tyniec, spectacularly perched on top of a rock, or hop on a tram to Nowa Huta. On the waiting list for UNESCO’s world heritage list, Nowa Huta is a bizarre social engineering experiment conceived in the early years of communist Poland – a new working class town with a gigantic steel factory that was to overshadow old Kraków with its burgeois ways, slender church spires and royal memorabilia. What was meant to be an independent city is now a troubled district of Kraków, that fascinates with its grandiose Stalinist architecture. Get there before it turns into the next Old Town.

Tomasz Gutkowski

Director of the Foundation for Visual Arts and the Photomonth festival in Krakow recommends a 24-hour itinerary

Krakow offers many fun-filled days for those in search of cultural and culinary attractions. But if you only have 24 hours I recommend the following itinerary (in no particular order). To keep things simple, we can start at Bunkier Sztuki, (Plac Szczepański 3a, tue – sun: 11 am – 6 pm). This contemporary urban gallery buzzes with alternative art life on two floors of space, including a wonderfully stocked bookstore and a vast cafe. Leaving Art Bunker, we head down ul. św. Tomasza to Galeria Camelot (ul. Św. Tomasza 17) and its renowned cafe, an ideal spot for early lunch.

Walk down the street a dozen or so metres and hang a left onto ul. Floriańska in the direction of Pauza – a conglomeration of a movie theatre, club, cafe, and gallery. Staying on ul. św. Tomasza, we come upon Galeria ZPAF I S-ka (ul. Św. Tomasza 24, wed, fri, sat: 12 – 6 pm, thu: 3 pm – 9 pm), a small but spunky gallery of contemporary photography and across the way is the House of Albums (ul. Św. Tomasza 25, mon – fri: 10 am – 7 pm, sat: 11 am – 7 pm), a fantastic bookstore specialising in art books and illustrated albums. We can walk, take a streetcar, or jump into a taxi to Kazimierz, the former Jewish quarter and currently the centre of Krakow nightlife. For coffee choose from one of the many cafes on Plac Nowy (Alchemia, Miejsce, Barak, Kolory, Singer, etc). If it’s time for lunch, go Italian, for example the Sicilian cuisine at Coca. Moving right along through Plac Wolnica, pop into the Ethnographic Museum (Plac Wolnica 1, tues – sat: 11 am – 7 pm, sun: 11 am – 3 pm). Later cross the Wisła river via the newly-built Bernatka footbridge and this puts us right in the heart of Podgórze, the free city of yore and now an increasingly fashionable district. Explore the neighbourhood, including: Galeria Starmach, known for its exhibitions of leading contemporary artists (ul. Węgierska 5), Goldex Poldex (ul. Józefińska 21/12) – the fanciful centre of independent culture, and the new home of Cricoteka, Tadeusz Kantor’s experimental theatre (museum to be opening in late 2011). After a short walk along the Wisła we come to one of the most dynamically growing parts of town. Once an unattractive industrial district, now home to two flagship cultural projects: the MOCAK (Museum of Modern Art Kraków), housed in a breathtaking new building and the nearby Oscar Schindler Factory Museum (Lipowa 4, tue – sun: 10 am – 6 pm), whose permanent exhibition shows the life of Krakow’s Jewish community during the Second World War. The day can be wrapped up by visiting Fabryka, a colony of artists workshops, galleries, and bookstores, formed around a huge music club. More likely than not, a concert or some other show will be on. If you still have the fortitude for more nightlife, head back to the City Centre for a taste of Krakow’s legendary clubs: Bomba, Pauza, Piękny Pies, Rozrywki 3 and many… too many… more.

Kraków, MOCAK Museum of Modern Art (MOCAK) designed by the Italian Claudio Nardi

Cecylia Malik

Artist who became popular thanks to her project 365 Trees. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Baron in the Trees, she climbed one tree every day for one year. Lives in Krakow

Salwator

This walk starts at the Dębnicki Bridge near Wawel Castle. Across from the Jubilat department store is Flisak Milk Bar where you can eat a proper full Polish lunch, including herring, chased down with a shot of vodka. After about five minutes of walking along the Wisła, we see the walls of the Convent of the Norbertine Sisters. Here we walk up onto ul. Tadeusza Kościuszki and continue in the direction of the final stop of the streetcar in Salwator. We pass a baroque abbey to our left and turn into ul. św. Bronisławy. This is a beautiful boulevard lined on both sides with maples, ash, linden and chestnut trees. This takes us past the Romanesque baroque Church of St. Salvador, the oldest church in Krakow, dating back to the 10th century. Across the street is St. Margaret’s, a round wooden structure. We pass the 100 – year old mansions of old Krakow families, a cemetery on our left and then we’re nearly at Kościuszko’s Mound. This is one of four such sites in Krakow built to commemorate Poland’s national heroes.

Tadeusz Kościuszko, originally a Polish military engineer, served as a general in the Polish and American armies, including fighting in the American Revolution. The effort to build the mound was commenced in 1820, three years after Kosciuszko’s death, and it took another three years to complete. We have a choice – the view from up top is spectacular, but we can also pass on from this and follow the path westward. Immediately on the other side of the mound is a sycamore-ash forest, and we are headed in the direction of the so-called Sikornik, a hill overgrown with birch trees. To our left we can see the Wisła valley, the abbey in Tyniec, and the gentile outline of the Beskidy mountains. Even further, on a clear day, one can also see the rugged snow-capped panorama of the Tatras. From Sikornik, we walk down through a pass, and we are in the middle of a real forest, beautiful beech woods that fill with thimbleweed in the spring. From here, we walk uphill for 15 minutes. Up top is the city zoo, and 134 bus that takes us back to the city centre. Another interesting place is the workshop of sculptor Andrzej Siek (ul. Emaus 20). It’s easy enough to find as the entranceway is marked by massive wood sculptures.

Andrzej Siek treats his work space as a gallery and exhibition space. A visit is highly recommended. Yet another fantastic place is the historical museum at Zwierzyniecki House (ul. Królowej Jadwigi 41). During communist times this house served as the Lenin Museum in Krakow, as legend holds that before he led the revolution in the Soviet Union he spent a couple of days here.

Zakrzówek

Zakrzowek is a lake among the Twardowski cliffs, not far from the Wisła, on the edge of the Krakow district of Dębniki. We are nearly in the city centre, only 20 minutes away from Wawel Castle. For quite some time this has been a great place for alpine climbing, nestled among the woods, meadows and natural rock formations. Twenty years ago this was the site of a quarry, which filled to become a lake and is now heaven for scuba divers. This site is currently being fought over by developers and environmentalists who are trying to preserve a habitat of the extremely rare Chequered Blue Butterfly.
PROD