Reasons you should visit Kraków, Poland
Since getting through my stack of photographs from my 2015 trip to Kraków in Poland, I thought I’d round off my series on this wonderful city with one final post detailing all the reasons I think you should add an adventure here to your list! As you may have seen from my first post on this trip, I was lucky to be taken to Poland by my lovely grandparents, alongside my brother Ned. We were in Kraków for a week, and managed to squeeze in visits to loads of places, whilst not ever feeling particularly rushed. I felt as though we’d covered a huge amount, yet could happily go back again to discover more!
1 || Kraków City Centre
Krakow is a reasonably small city, and can easily be navigated around by foot. The city centre sits around the market Rynek Glówny right in the middle of a huge square, famous for pigeons, bars and cafes, horse drawn carriages and flower stalls (oh, and that infamous sheep thing playing a flute). It’s a really wonderful place to enjoy an ice cream in the sun, watch the world go by with a coffee and equally comes alive at night time. Most streets lead off this central square, and can be found easily due to the presence of the huge church dominating the skyline.
2 || The Architecture and Green Spaces
I love visiting anywhere with interesting buildings, and Krakow did not disappoint. Each building seems so carefully crafted, every corner you turn there’s another architectural interest, or beautiful park filled with flowers to photograph. It was a stunningly beautiful city, something I naively did not expect before I arrived! St Mary’s Basilica Church in the centre of the city is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been in. Sneakily snapping photographs during Sunday mass, I was just in awe of how beautiful and how decadent a church would be designed.
3 || It’s Cheap
Whilst I may have been in a full time adult job for nearly two years, it doesn’t mean my brain stops me thinking like a student on a tight budget! Poland was surprisingly cheaaappp (as in, about £4-5 for a main evening meal in a posh restaurant!!). Get yourself some squeezyjet advance flights and save some złoty for the airport (seriously, SO MUCH BOOZE) and you’ve got yourself a really great holiday without breaking the bank!
4 || The Jewish District and Lover’s Bridge
A really interesting day out is spent haggling with a man who drives a little motorised golf cart thing (they’re all over the city, it won’t take you long to find one!) and heading out to the Jewish quarter to have an explore of the history there (and see where Schindler’s List was filmed), and maybe taking a trip to the Lover’s bridge to leave a padlock amongst the thousands on there. Nawww.
5 || The Food
I’ve always kinda grown up with Polish influenced food. Well, mainly from Babcia around special occasions, but boy was the food good in Kraków! We ate pierogi (meat or cheese filled dumplings) and so much kabanos (a long thin dried smoky garlic sausage) amongst lots of Italian food (who knew the Poles were such a fan?!) Ned and I also rolled around for a few hours unable to get up after eating the BIGGEST pizzas of my entire life, and I had the best gnocci I’ve ever tried. Let’s just say, the food was awesome!
6 || Wieliczka Salt Mine
This trip out of Kraków was fantastic, we booked onto a typical touristy tour, but going into the salt mine was fascinating. Not for the faint hearted, you spiral down a flight of about 56938546732 stairs, going deep into the ground and then are guided around sweeping paths and caves, all carved into the salty rock. The ballroom in the centre was breathtaking and the whole tour was actually really well done. Photographs using a 50mm lense, in the dark, without using flash, however, were utter crap. So apologies for the terrible representation!
7 || Zakopane
One of the places Babcia and Grandad were really excited to take us was the mountain town of Zakopane. We hired a chauffeur (ooooh FANCY!) and had a great drive in a luxury Mercedes out of Kraków for about 100km. The town was beautiful, so picturesque! There were loads of stalls with Polish souvenirs to purchase, and lots of sweet restaurants and shops. In winter it’s a snowy ski village, but whilst we were there the sun shone and it felt great to get out and about in the fresh air. Our driver even stopped on the way back at a tiny wooden house in the middle of nowhere where he said do the best Oscypek (sheep’s milk cheese made into decorative shapes). It reminded me of a salty smokey sheepy version of halloumi.
8 || Auschwtiz-Birkenau
If you saw my post last week on my visit to Auschwtiz-Birkenau, you’ll understand why I think this is a really important reason to visit Kraków. If not, read it here.
9 || The People
When visiting anywhere in Europe, the local people are often ridiculously good at English, putting us brits to shame. Whilst in Kraków this wasn’t always the case, they were genuinely all so pleasant and friendly and I was really surprised by how safe and welcoming the city was. The culture is very different to anywhere i’d been before but in such a lovely way, you’d feel right at home as soon as you got there!
10 || Wodka
Wodka has to be mentioned, and most especially the Wodka bar. Ned and I decided on our second to last night that we had to go out and have a drink sans the grandparents. However, this was also the aforementioned evening of enormous pizzas, so we were full to bursting and pretty lethargic.
“Just one drink” we said.
Fateful!
After sampling the biggest range and most delicious selection of vodkas, 24 various shots later, a hilarious encounter with a Mancunian, an Italian and two Scottish bastards, at 3am we were roaming the streets of Kraków totally (as Michael McIntyre would put it) gazeoboed*!
*drink responsibly kids, and NEVER say “just one drink”
