A park circles the entire old town in the former location of the now-gone walls but the castle/royal palace, Wawel Castle, still overlooks the city from a small hill near the bend in the river. On the right is Wawel Cathedral inside the castle.
Krakow has long since expanded beyond where the walls used to be, but for a tourist the little Old Town is the place to be, full of great sights and cool atmosphere, even if there are quite a few tourists. From left to right is Florianska Street looking at the main square from Florian Gate, a church (Saints Peter's and Paul's Church) on one of the main ways in the Old Town, and the Barbakan, an old defensive structure built to protect Florian Gate.
The main reason many people come to Krakow is its proximity to Auschwitz. I took a day to go out to there and to Berkenau, another concentration camp just down the road that was purpose-built for housing and killing the Jewish population of Europe. Berkenau in partciular gives a more real sense of the scale of the Holocaust than anything I've read or seen before it. It is something everyone should see and the museums have done a great job with the presentation and preservation of these camps. If you ever have a mind to go see a concentration camp, make sure it's here. These pictures are from Auschwitz, notice the Nazi slogan on the entrance to the camp "ARBEIT MACHT FREI," or German for "work will set you free," which is posted on all the concentration camps the Nazis built, something I always found particularly disturbing about them:
And this is Berkenau:
Krakow shares a lot with other major European cities in terms of layout and substance of the city but there is enough uniqueness in and of itself to warrent a visit and the enriching experience of visiting Auschwitz make the visit to Krakow worthwhile and unforgettable.
Beer of Poland: Poland has an extensive selection of pretty decent beer, available all over the place, especially in bottle and can form. While I prefer it on tap, I was still pretty pleased by the quality of the choices; they even have a few good darks and stronger ones. Below are a few typical ones, all lighter beers that taste subtly different from one another. Grade: A-.
Ice Cream of Poland: While the gelato and the scooped ice cream has recessed to Hungarian quality (i.e. mash the scoops on the side for tiny portion of barely passable ice cream), they have soft-served ice cream everywhere, available in loads of varieties from vanilla, chocolate, and swirl to vanilla with streaks of strawberry, apple, or chocolate to add a little extra flavor. And it's also under a dollar. While soft-serve isn't as elegant as other types of ice cream, I was happy to have it on those hot afternoons baking in the Polish sun. Grade: C+.
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Details:
Eurolines runs a few daily buses from Vienna to Krakow, I took the one at 8:00 but there are also buses at 14:50 and 21:00, the last being a night bus. The trip takes somewhere between 5 and 8 hours, depending on which bus you take (they follow different routes to get there) and the fare is 38 euro one way with a 10% student available. Check www.eurolines.com for the most up to date info. Getting in is a bit disorienting, but if you can't see a sign with a map or one pointing the way to the old town, just head towards the abutting mall, called Galleria Krakowska and turn left. Head in this direction until you see signs to show you the way (they aren't far). The bus station and train station are right next to eachother, and the buses are furthest from the old town and the mall is closest, if that helps. Anyways, a park surrounds the old town so just walk through it. Once you get to the Barbakan, a castle gate-looking thing, turn left and you are on Florianska Street. My hostel was about halfway down on the left, called Tutti Frutti, which was fun and set up well and it was easy to meet people (dorms vary in price according to size but the 6-bed is $19/60zl and the 10-bed is $14/45zl). Free internet, wifi and breakfast. Most things to see are in the old town and quite easy to find. Walking from the barbacan all the way down Florianska and the street that picks up in the same direction after the square will take you by most of the sights and ends at the castle. The castle is free to go inside, but the museums and cathedral cost money to enter (cathedral $1.75/5zl student, $3/10zl adult). However, they are very lax about checking tickets in the cathedral, so I would just go in and look around until they tell you to stop. The cathedral on the main square is easily the most impressive in town ($2/7zl for a student (?) but they will stick you with a $1.75/5zl camera fee if you let them see you take pictures). Getting to Auschwitz on your own is simple, just go to the bus station and head downstairs. At platform D7, buses leave every 20 minutes in the morning and early afternoon, buy tickets on the bus ($3/9zl one way, 1.25 hours). The buses leave from Auschwitz from midday to 19:00 from the same place they drop you off at. There is also a train that takes about the same time ($3/10zl) but the service is less frequent and doesn't take you directly to the museum. The museums are both free to enter, but joining up with a guided tour will cost something like $10/30zl. To get from Auschwitz to Berkenau (they are about 3km apart), there is a free bus ride every hour or you can walk, ask someone to point out the way, it is simple but hard to describe without being there (takes about 30 minutes).
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