Krakow

fucking hell, scum, a group of men wearing the identical t-shirts with their nick names on the back-avoid!

The Australian Twenty20 cricket team!

I'm going here and to Aushwitz, with my mum soon. :)

just booked up flights to krakow
my soon to be brother inlaws STAG weekend
i will advise them not to wear matching t-shirts or make dickheads of themselves and hopefully will have a nice relaxed time
how much is a litre of piwo there ? whats the food like ? will i be able to find a " gut buster " full english fry up ? and a chippy ?

I like the Pubs that have signs stating "No English" ;p

I'm glad this thread (re)appeared; bit of inside info without having to look. Win. I'm going next weekend to celebrate a month off the booze (well a month minus 2 days) with what I imagine is going to be alot of vodka.

I'm glad this thread (re)appeared; bit of inside info without having to look. Win. I'm going next weekend to celebrate a month off the booze (well a month minus 2 days) with what I imagine is going to be alot of vodka.

I bet your liver can't wait ;p

The liver is busy regenerating - it's nearly ready, and I can't wait.

The liver is busy regenerating - it's nearly ready, and I can't wait.

A single in Poland is usually a 40ml shot ;p or even a 50 ;p ;p

Been there three times now. Goodbye Lenin in Krakow is the best hostel I've ever found. Something like £4 a night, free unlimited internet, free buffet breakfast, one of the staff rides fixed (lots of people do in Krakow I noticed this summer)

Salt mines are good.

Auschwitz is good. Well, not good, but yno. Definitely go to Birkenau. Don't bother with a guide to Birkenau, I've been twice and the second time with a guide wasn't worth it at all.

Last time I was there, got back from a harrowing 3-hr tour of Auschwitz in -10 degrees, and met up with a bunch of Scots in the pub that night. Conversation as follows:

Scot - 'Have you been to Auschwitz yet?'

Me - 'Yes, today - hard to believe, wasn't it?'

S - 'Aye, can you believe it was that cheap? what a bargain! Something like that back home would cost a fortune!'

They just don't help themselves sometimes.

Auschwitz is worth a visit, it is however a pretty depressing day out. Make sure you give yourself enough time as I had to cut my visit short to catch the bus back to the city.

I felt that the Wawel castle was a waste of money, it is ok to go up and see but to pay to look inside was boring and nothing special - we have plenty of better castles in the UK - it is more like a stately home than a castle.

I was also a little disappointed by wielicka, but I have visited plenty of caves and mines so I was expecting something extraordinary.

Best thing to do in Kraków? Walk around absorb the culture, go find a little cafe and have a quiet coffee. Sit in the main square and look around for british people shaming our country on their stag nights!(I live in Poland and it is a popular topic over here to talk about how bad our manners are in their cities)

Kazimierz is worth it. I'm headed there in 3 weeks for the marathon and to meet some friends so I'll have to do some more sightseeing there.

When I was at the dragon we tried texting but it didn't work either.

Keep your eye's peeled for free beer man.

ahhh the beer man! he chased us down the street when I was there last easter!

Not sure whether the whole text-the-dragon thing is not a scam. Have heard people laugh at that. The hejnał (pron. just like 'hey now'), similarly, which is played by a trumpeter every (half an?) hour until late at night.

Just as already has been said, the best thing to do is go to the main square, have a nice cup of coffee, enjoy the street performers, then head to the Jewish district Kazimierz (which, btw is on the South), and, well, do the same there, hehe. You can also visit Auschwitz, Salt Mine in Wieliczka, Schindler's factory in Podgórze, the Kościuszko mound and all that... Oh, a museum has just been reopened in the middle of the main square, under Sukiennice (cloth hall), might be worth a visit, too.

PS I know it's an old thread, but might be helpful to someone, anyway.

Giving this thread a bump, if you have any recent recommendations beyond the usual tourist attractions, please let me know as i'll be passing through in a few weeks time on my bike

I was there last year, staying at the top of the Jewish Quarter. If you head to Jozefa Street, there were quite a number of cheap bars and restaurants, including a lovely ice cream parlour.

Ref from Google Maps:
Józefa 12–20
31-056‎ Krakow
Poland

One of the restaurants has an outside garden/white arches, where some of Schindler's List was filmed. The restaurants in the main square of the Jewish quarter were also good, (also where Schindler was filmed, and some Spielberg ate at) they were reasonably priced but I wouldn't say they were particularly cheap.

If you haven't been, Auschwitz is a must, but it's an all day trip to do Auschwitz I and II (Birkenau). But then I believe everyone should go to Auschwitz at least once in their lifetime.

The (then newly opened) Schlinder factory was interesting, if you like history.

We took a walking guide around the whole Jewish quarter, it wasn't so expensive, and if you go to the main square a guided buggy ride around the town might help you navigate yourself.

dafuq, there's shitload of places to see in Poland, mountains, national parks, art galleries, old cities but everyone is seeing concentration camp.I'm not trying to claim that holocaust is no big deal but when I was in London for a week last thing on my mind was visiting places where people got murdered on a big scale (do you have any?).
anyway krk is bike-friendly, bike lanes are well marked, drivers are quite polite.HOWEVER police and straz miejska (municipal police? bunch of wankers anyway) are very often looking for drunk cyclists (limit of alcohol is the same as for drivers 0.2 promile).also you should beware if cycling on sidewalk you should beware because they like to catch you when riding through pedestrian crossing.
anyway have a nice trip.
there is also polo field in abandoned swimming pool, but I don't exactly know where.

Thanks for your advice...much appreciated

Krakow bike polo scene is definitely bubbling along nicely - they've got an amazing space in an old abandoned pool complex. An amazing site and they're a really friendly bunch

WHERE is that poloscene? In Krakow now on fixed from Finland, trying to get in touch with the local scene.

http://bikepolokrakow.blogspot.co.uk/ (translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbikepolokrakow.blogspot.co.uk%2F) ?

Try EHBPC Krakow on FB too: https://www.facebook.com/ehbpc2013

https://maps.google.de/maps?q=krak%C3%B3w+polfa&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=50.070156,19.969239&spn=0.006873,0.015407&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hq=polfa&hnear=Krakow,+Krak%C3%B3w+County,+Lesser+Poland+Voivodeship,+Poland&t=m&z=16&iwloc=A

There you go.

Liking the sound of Krakow very much

When I was in Krakow last year, some Brit stags all had T shirts with a photo of the groom-to-be in a racing car, and every single T shirt had:

SIMON IN THE POLE POSITION

which is a joke that's humour content would have evaporated at the t shirt shop door, I'd have thought.

Krakow is brilliant, the people are lovely, the food is hearty and cheap, a beer's two quid even in the main Rynek, I was enjoying a beer there when Kristen Scott Thomas and family sat down! The Cloth Hall is a good museum now, Schindler's factory is also a museum about the occupation of Krakow, it had been empty and derelict for years, the first time I looked round it was just me, the security guard and a cat.

Kazimierz is lovely, just over the new bridge you can get to Podgorze (on the north bank of the river a gay bar has opened which seems to fascinate and repel Krakovians in equal measure) which is up-and-coming, nearby is the old camp and the house where Goth lived and shot prisoners from his balcony, Spielberg filmed there as well (even he wasn't allowed to film in Auschwitz.)

You can visit the Jagiellonian University and see Chopin's piano, but my favourite spot is Massolit books, a brilliant American-run second hand bookshop where you can get lovely muffins and coffee and have a good browse.

http://www.massolit.com/