Kraków (the second largest city in Poland, population 780,000 in the city, the historical capital of the Kingdom of Poland from 1038 to 1596 and then of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the most important royal and cultural city of medieval and Renaissance Poland) is the best-preserved major city in Poland for a specific reason: it was the only major Polish city to largely escape destruction in World War II. While Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdańsk and other Polish cities were bombed, shelled and deliberately destroyed, Kraków was declared an "open city" by the German occupiers (who used it as the capital of the General Government — the Nazi administration of occupied Poland) and then liberated quickly by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945 before the Germans could implement their destruction orders. The result: Kraków retains its medieval and Renaissance urban fabric essentially intact. The Stare Miasto (Old Town) is one of the most complete medieval city centers in Central Europe: the Rynek Główny (the main market square — the largest medieval market square in Europe: 200m × 200m, from the 13th century), the Sukiennice (the Renaissance Cloth Hall at the center of the square, 1555), the Wawel (the hill with the royal castle and cathedral above the Vistula — the equivalent of Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace combined), and the Kazimierz (the Jewish quarter, one of the best-preserved Jewish urban heritage districts in Europe).
The Main Market Square of Kraków (the largest medieval market square in Europe — the 40,000 square meter square laid out in 1257 after the Mongol invasion destroyed the earlier city: the Sukiennice (the Renaissance Cloth Hall — the 108m long building at the center of the square, originally a medieval trading hall extended in Gothic and Renaissance style, now housing an art gallery above and souvenir and amber stalls below), the St Mary's Basilica (the Gothic church from whose tower a bugler plays the Hejnał Mariacki (the trumpet fanfare) every hour on the hour in all four directions, breaking off mid-phrase to commemorate the 13th-century watchman shot by a Mongol arrow while sounding the alarm), and the underground Rynek Underground Museum (the medieval foundations and streets beneath the square).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideWawel (the limestone hill above the Vistula river, the geographic and symbolic heart of Poland): the Wawel Royal Castle (Zamek Królewski na Wawelu — the residence of Polish kings from 1038 to 1596, then the symbolic seat of Polish nationhood: the Renaissance arcaded courtyard (the finest Renaissance courtyard in Central Europe north of the Alps), the Royal Chambers and the Treasury (the Szczerbiec — the coronation sword of the Polish kings, the oldest surviving Polish crown jewel)). The Wawel Cathedral (the coronation and burial church of all Polish kings from Bolesław I in 1025 to the last coronation in 1764: the sarcophagi of the kings in the crypt, the Black Crucifix Chapel and the Sigismund Bell (1520, the largest medieval bell in Poland, rung only on the most important national occasions)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKazimierz (the Jewish neighborhood founded by King Casimir the Great in 1335, one of the most important Jewish urban heritage districts in Europe — 65,000 Jews lived in Kraków before WWII (28% of the population), and Kazimierz was the center of Jewish Kraków from the 14th century until 1941 when the German occupiers forced the entire Jewish population into the Podgórze Ghetto across the river. The Remuh Synagogue (1553 — the working synagogue of the Remuh community, with the 16th-century cemetery (one of the oldest surviving Jewish cemeteries in Poland)). Today: the bohemian restaurants, klezmer music bars (Alchemia, Café Singer) and the Schindler Factory Museum.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKraków traditional dinner: the żurek w chlebie (the sour rye soup served in a hollowed-out sourdough bread loaf — the Kraków serving style: the bread acts as both bowl and accompaniment, absorbing the tangy white soup with white sausage and egg as you eat it down), and oscypek (the smoked sheep's milk cheese of the Tatra Mountains, made exclusively by the górale (the highland shepherds of the Podhale region) from May to September in a strictly traditional method (PDO protected designation): the oval-shaped smoked cheese, grilled and served with cranberry jam). Milkbar Tomasza (Sw. Tomasza 24 — the upscale milk bar adjacent to the Old Town, the best traditional Polish food in the city center).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideAuschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum (the UNESCO World Heritage site 70km west of Kraków — the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex where 1.1 million people (of whom approximately 90% were Jewish — from Poland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Italy and across occupied Europe) were murdered between 1940 and 1945: the most important site of the Holocaust and the most visited memorial site in Europe (approximately 2.3 million visitors/year). The mandatory approach: reserve guided tours well in advance (the site operates timed entry groups), allow a full day (Auschwitz I (the main camp) + Birkenau (Auschwitz II, the largest of the Nazi extermination camps) together take 4–5 hours).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideAuschwitz I (the original camp, established 1940 in the former Polish army barracks: the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate (the cynical motto "Work Sets You Free" over the entrance), the 28 brick blocks converted to barracks (Block 11 — the "Death Block" where prisoners were executed against the Black Wall (the execution wall between Blocks 10 and 11), the basement starvation and standing cells, and where Zyklon B was first used on Soviet POWs in September 1941), the exhibition halls in the blocks (organized by nationality — the Dutch room, the French room, the Hungarian room, each displaying the personal items found at the camp: the shoes (thousands, in a pile behind glass), the hair (2,000kg of human hair found at liberation), the suitcases with names and addresses painted on them by victims who believed they were being resettled).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideAuschwitz-Birkenau (the vast extermination complex 3km from the main camp, established 1941–1942 specifically for mass murder: the largest single site of mass murder in human history — the 175-hectare camp at its largest held 90,000 prisoners simultaneously. The approach: the famous Birkenau gate (the "Death Gate" — the brick watchtower and the railway line that runs through the gate directly to the selection ramp where SS doctors (Mengele among them) separated the arrivals into those who would be used for forced labor and those who would be murdered immediately — approximately 70–80% of each arriving train went directly to the gas chambers). The ruins of Crematoria II and III (deliberately blown up by the SS in November 1944 as the Soviet advance approached — the ruins preserved as found on liberation day, January 27, 1945).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideReturn to Kraków by bus or tour (1.5 hrs). A quiet dinner after Auschwitz: the restaurant Pod Nosem (Kanonicza 22 — the finest traditional Polish restaurant in Kraków, in a Renaissance townhouse below Wawel Hill: the barszcz (the deep crimson Polish beetroot soup), the bigos (the Polish hunter's stew of sauerkraut, fresh cabbage, pork, mushrooms and juniper berries — the most characteristic Polish dish, which improves over 3 days of reheating), the duck with apple), with a glass of the Kraków craft beer (the Browar Lubicz, the local Kraków microbrewery).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory Museum (Lipowa 4, Podgórze — the factory where the German industrialist Oskar Schindler employed 1,200 Jews during the German occupation of Kraków, saving them from deportation to the extermination camps (the basis of Thomas Keneally's 1982 novel "Schindler's Ark" and Steven Spielberg's 1993 film "Schindler's List"): the museum (opened 2010 in the restored factory building) is a comprehensive exhibition of daily life in Kraków from 1939 to 1945 — the Nazi occupation, the ghetto, the factory, and the liberation — with the enamel-production workshops converted to exhibition spaces and the original factory office of Schindler preserved.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideWieliczka Salt Mine (UNESCO World Heritage — 15km southeast of Kraków: the underground mine in continuous operation from the 13th century to 2007, containing 300km of underground galleries, shafts and chambers at depths of 64–327m (the tourist route goes to 135m). The underground complex includes: the Chapel of St Kinga (the most spectacular underground space in Central Europe — the entirely salt-carved chapel (the walls, floor, chandeliers, altar, bas-relief carvings and statues, all carved by miners from the grey crystalline salt, 54m long × 18m wide × 12m high, completed 1896), the underground salt lake (the brine lake at the lowest level of the tourist route), and the reconstruction of the medieval salt extraction machinery.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePlac Nowy (the circular market hall in the center of the Kazimierz district — the most atmospheric street food square in Kraków: the zapiekanka (the Polish street food classic of Kraków: the open-faced toasted half-baguette topped with sautéed mushrooms and melted yellow cheese (the classic, PLN 5–10), with a range of toppings from tomato sauce to smoked salmon to pulled duck. The zapiekanka is sold from the openings of the circular market hall building from afternoon until midnight. A simple, satisfying, distinctly Krakovian street food ritual, eaten standing in the square). With a local craft beer from Omerta (the hipster bar on Plac Nowy) and the evening buskers.
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