We've just returned from a weekend trip to Poland, spending 4 days in Krakow. This is a beautiful city, with so much to offer, see and do. If you're looking for some inspiration, then hopfully this trip report of our 4 days in Krakow will help!
Krakow transport & accommodation
We flew with Easyjet from Gatwick at 9:30am, arriving at 12:30pm Krakow time. We ordered airport transfers with Krakow Airport Express, who were brilliant! It cost £18 each way, which is more expensive than the train, but we liked the convenience and speed, so we were happy to pay more. We arrived at the airport early and our driver was already there waiting for us!
Transfer time from airport to city centre was only 20 minutes and we were dropped off right outside our hotel door, which was the Aparthotel Stare Miasto. The location is fabulous, right around the corner from the main square and walking distance to all the main sights, bars and restaurants. The rooms were also gorgeous, with lots of bare brickwork, modern bathrooms and kitchenettes. This was a brilliant find for us and was also great value at £190 for all 4 days.
Krakow Day 1
We dumped our bags in reception and we headed straight to the city centre to get our barings. We had a nose through Cloth Hall, which has lots of stalls selling items and local wares. We continued exploring the square on foot, drinking in the atmosphere before coming across a bar called Noworolski which we had read about before arriving and wanted to visit.
Noworolski is a cafe which opened in 1910 and became a local haunt for the SS during WWII when Krakow fell under Nazi occupation. The cafe had previously been family owned, and was later returned to the family in 1991/92. It was a beautiful sunny day so we sat outside to order our drinks, but the decor inside is a complete throwback to the 1930s/40s and looks like it has been frozen in time. I ordered a vodka (Zubrowka), while Bexx ordered a cocktail. The staff aren't the quickest, but their service is polite and we were so distracted drinking in the atmosphere to really notice. It's definitely worth coming here, even if you only have one drink.
After that we headed for St Mary's Church and bought tickets to go up the tower. We had 1 hour to wait for our allotted time (there is a ticket office just to the side of the church), so we wandered inside to find one of the most elaborate churches, with so much colour, detail and patterns!
St Mary's Church
At 271 steps, the tower isn't the tallest - which is handy when you're walking up it's tiny winding staircase. But it's high enough for some great views over the city! There is also a bugle player, who plays from 3 of the tower windows on the hour, every hour. The history behind this is that apparently back in the medieval days it was tradition for the bugle player to play every hour, and to alert the city if they were under attack. One night this happened and whilst he sounded the alarm, he was shot with an arrow and the bugle stopped mid-note. As tribute this is what the bugle players now do and have been doing for about 100 years, playing for about 1 minute before stopping short mid-note. Whilst we were up the tower the bugle player appeared and we watched him play from each of the windows. The views across Krakow are pretty sweet too!
We next headed towards St Florian's Gate and The Barbican, which are part of the old city fortifications. We also explored Planty Park, which circles most of the city, and back to our hotel so we could unpack and refresh ourselves for dinner.
By sheer coincidence, we also had a friend travelling around Europe who happened to be in Krakow the same day we were. We met that evening for a quick drink at Noworolski, before heading off to a yummy Italian called La Campana. This is where we realised just how good value Poland is! We had 3 courses and drinks and the total bill came to £11 each! The food was delicious, great decor and great service. What's not to love?
After dinner, Bexx and I bought a bottle of wine to take back to our apartment for a nightcap before catching an early-ish night.
Krakow Day 2
Our first full day in the city and we had tickets to visit Oskar Schindler's factory. The factory is located just outside Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter of Krakow and is about a 30 minute walk from the city centre. En-route we also passed the Heroes Square and the remains of the Jewish Ghetto wall from WWII. The Heroes Square is a memorial at what was the point of departure for thousands of Jews from the Ghetto to various different camps and is definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.
The Ghetto wall remains were also pretty interesting and helped show the scale and size of the wall - it was certainly higher than I thought it would be and looked so intimidating. There are a couple of segments of the wall dotted around, but the section we specifically knew of is on a road called Lwowska, just off Boleslawa Limanowskiego.
Once at Schindler's Factory, we spent 2 hours exploring all the different exhibits within the factory. A ticket equated to about £4 and whilst there are companies who provide tours, if you buy the standard admission ticket it's a self-guided tour around the exhibits and information signs.
The start of the factory conveys what life was like in Poland before the war and how Krakow was on the rise of independence towards the end of the 1930's, before it fell under Nazi occupation. The rest of the factory details life in Krakow and for Jews during that time, leading up to Oskar Schindler's input. There was also a cinema room playing a short film interviewing those who worked and were rescued by Oskar Schindler, which was really interesting to watch.
The time flew by and we learnt so much, it was such an interesting morning. In the UK I have heard people refer to the city as "Krakau" and "Krakov". As we went around the exhibits, we learnt the proper pronunciation is "ov" and the "au" sounding came from Germany when the city was under occupation. They renamed the city to sound more German. The main square was also renamed during the war to 'Adolf Hitler-Platz'. So it was really interesting to learn about city-specific changes that happened during the war.
Before our trip we had read online that Spielberg used a local disused quarry to film scenes for Schindler's List. We also read that not far from the quarry were the old camp remains of Płaszów Concentration Camp; so off we went in search for this!
On the way we found Benedict Fort - the fort is no longer used for anything (to my knowledge) and people have since broken through the chain fencing around it for a nose...so we also had a little look too!
We didn't stay long as it felt a bit eerie, so we continued on our search for Liban Quarry. We cut through a few paths and walked up a high-ish mound for some great views across the city - and to our left was some fencing leading to the quarry.
The quarry was super cool and we spent ages walking around the lip looking down into the quarry. We also read that Spielberg left behind some of the props used to create the concentration camp - the photo isn't the clearest in the world, but just below the towers you can see some fence panels which he used to create the camp grounds and boundaries.
Not far from the quarry are also the Płaszów camp remains. The buildings have now been graffitied, and almost nothing remains from the camp after it was liquidated during the end of the war, but it is interesting history all the same. The place where the camp once was is now a park and a place where people can actually enjoy the space - have picnics, walk the dogs or go for a walk. It was nice to see everyday life, surrounding the remains and the memorials which are dotted throughout the park. It is important we never forget, and it was nice that we were left to our own imagination, walking through the park and stumbling across segments of history.
The camp was initially built in the early 40s as a forced labour camp, but soon become a favourable execution site after people were sent from the Ghetto to the camp. Amon Goeth soon oversaw the camp and liquidated the Krakow Ghetto, sending all those from the area straight to the camp or to Auschwitz. In little over a year, Płaszów became a destination not just for Krakow residents, but those from Eastern Europe and elsewhere in Poland, growing from 2,000 prisoners to over 12,000.
Before the camp was torn down towards the end of the war, the camp peaked at 25,000 prisoners. Those still in the camp in January 1945 were sent on death marches to Auschwitz and what the Soviets found when they came across the camp is pretty much exactly what we see today. Approximately 2,000 Polish and Jews who passed through Płaszów survived the war - 1,000 of these were the ‘Schindler Jews’.
As we left the park, we came across a residential street, which was known as SS Strausse where the SS lived. Further down the road at number 22, we found Amon Goeth's house. It was incredibly surreal - I believe the house has recently been bought at auction and is currently undergoing renovation.
We caught the tram back to the city centre and headed straight for our apartment for a quick nap and freshen up ready for dinner.
We headed to Tradycja having seen a number of things on the menu which looked great! Bexx had a pizza while I ordered cheese Pierogi (traditional Polish dumplings). We had a starter and dessert each too, and with drinks came to about £10 each!
Afterwards we headed to Sioux for drinks - sadly the service was pretty terrible and very slow, but the drinks were good. We got chatting to 2 guys from Holland on the table next to us until it was time for us to move on to our next place: Wodka!
We came to this vodka bar after reading great things about it online. It's a tiny bar, so you may not get a table - we were lucky and got the last free table by the door. We ordered a tasting tray of 6 different vodka flavours and that was how we spent the remainder of our evening, until we stumbled back to our apartment. The staff in this place are great, asking about what kind of flavours we like and making recommendations - the price worked out fair as well, at less than £1 per shot.
Krakow day 3
We had another busy day lined up - this time we were off to visit Auschwitz.
We booked transport with a tour company called Escape 2 Poland. You can easily catch the train and bus to the camp, but for the sake of convenience we picked a company so all transport was sorted for us.
The camp is about 1/1.5 hours drive from the city centre. We were picked up by our driver at 10am and by the time our the pick-ups had taken place we arrived at the camp for midday. Our driver was really lovely, picked us up on time at a location right around the corner from our hotel. They also play a short film for during the journey, telling you some history and real life accounts of Auschwitz.
Once there we had a bit of time to grab some lunch and a drink as our tour wasn't until 12:30. Our guide's name was Anna and she was absolutely brilliant! She was really knowledgeable and allowed plenty of time for questions so everyone had a full understanding. We were at Auschwitz for about 2 hours and whilst we certainly didn't get to see everything, Anna did a great job of giving us the main facts and stories of the camp to give everyone a pretty comprehensive overview. Having visited Sachsenhausen when Oli and I visited Berlin a few years ago, it was interesting to visit a camp like Auschwitz which is on a much larger scale... particularly Birkenau, which was the second part of our tour.
Upon arriving at Birkenau and walking through the entrance, the first thing you notice is the sheer size of the camp. A lot of the barracks, particularly on the men's side are now just ruins, but as far as the eye can see, are rows upon rows of barracks and remains of barracks. Our guide explained they were running out of capacity at Birkenau and had plans to expand the camp before the end of the war, which was just astounding really, standing there and hearing that.
We stood on what was the main platform alongside the train tracks, which is where prisoners were unloaded from the trains and the selection process happened on the spot - either they were sent to the camp, or to the gas chambers. It was horrifying standing there, knowing people's fates were decided on that very spot. Anna also told us about the travel conditions; how 80 - 100 people would be crammed into these tiny wooden carts and transported 2, 3, 5, sometimes 10 days to the camp. In some circumstances they were dead on arrival from suffocation in the cart due to the heat and lack of oxygen.
We spent an hour at Birkenau, looking around the site, the gas chamber remains and one of the barracks open for viewing, to portray their living conditions. Many are not open due to disrepair. I don't want to say too much, because it doesn't justify how important visiting this place is. You really have to go and see it for yourself. It's such a sobering experience, but so important.
We got back to our hotel and were pretty exhausted after the day - it had been mentally draining and also very hot!. We had nap to refresh ourselves and then grabbed a yummy Italian dinner at a place around the corner called La Grand Mamma. I was craving ricotta and had a yummy spinach and ricotta cannelloni, followed by a lush dessert!
We headed back to Sioux for drinks, because although the service was poor (and continued to be poor), we liked the atmosphere. As it happens, apparently our friends from Holland who we met there the night before also liked it this much as they were also there, sat at the same table. It was great to catch up with them, as this was the last night in the city for us all. We finished our drinks and headed back to Wodka for more vodka tasting and ended the night at Bania Luka. The place was absolutely packed and had a great atmosphere. We ended up drinking outside the front of the bar and made a few friends on our last night which was great. We then stumbled back to our apartment and slept very well!
Krakow day 4
We slept in and caught up on some much needed sleep - we definitely deserved to have sore heads but got away lucky! We packed up our stuff and grabbed breakfast before heading down to Wawel Castle for our last day.
The queue to get into the castle was ridiculous, so we decided instead to walk around the castle grounds. There are extras you can pay for too - such as climbing the castle tower, which had no queues at all! It was another lovely sunny day and the atmosphere outside was really relaxed. We spent a good hour or so around the castle and we loved going up the tower, which had some really lovely views over the castle and the river.
We had one final explore around the city centre and decided to grab our last couple of drinks back at Noworolski. The sun was glorious and we spent a good hour sat in the sun, chatting and people watching. It was a great way to spend our last day.
Before we were due to be picked up we stumbled across a museum within Cloth Hall which exhibited the underground vaults of Krakow...err what?? We hadn't heard of this anywhere, but it was really cool! We did unfortunately have to rush through it a bit to be back at the hotel on time, but the place was so cool and interesting. All in all a brilliant way to spend our last day in Krakow!
We both had a fantastic time during our 4 days in Krakow, this is a place which should definitely be on everyone's list. It has a great mix of history, culture and nightlife.
I hope you found this trip report of 4 days in Krakow helpful and hopefully it gives you some inspiration for your trip. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions in the comments section below - thanks all!
