Central Europe
Grand old squares, wartime ghosts, and Europe's warmest bargain.
Poland is big, proud and far better value than its neighbours to the west — a country of magnificent medieval squares, sobering 20th-century history, and a food-and-vodka welcome that runs deep. Kraków, the old royal capital, came through the war unbombed and keeps one of the largest and loveliest market squares in Europe; around it lie salt mines, mountains and the unmissable, unbearable weight of Auschwitz. Warm, cheap and easy, with a café and bar culture that punches well above its price.
What things cost: Poland is one of the best-value city breaks in Europe — a proper restaurant dinner, a craft beer, a taxi across town all cost a fraction of Western prices. Kraków's main square carries a small tourist premium; a street or two away it vanishes. When a zone below says 'low', that means low for Poland — which is very low indeed.
Sometimes the event picks the city for you.
The Main Square turns into a wooden Christmas village of mulled wine, grilled sausage and oscypek cheese, often under snow — and in early December comes the szopki contest, Kraków's unique, glittering fantasy nativity crèches, a UNESCO tradition.
Kraków · Rynek Główny
The old pagan St John's Eve, reborn as a giant free riverside party below Wawel — wreaths floated on the Vistula, big-name concerts and fireworks over the castle. The warmest, most joyful night of Kraków's year; go early for a spot on the bank.
Kraków · Vistula riverbank below Wawel
Ten days that fill Kazimierz with klezmer, Yiddish song, workshops and food, climaxing in a huge free open-air concert on Szeroka Street — one of the biggest celebrations of Jewish culture in the world, in the quarter where it belongs.
Kraków · Kazimierz
The Small Market Square fills with stalls dishing up every kind of pierogi imaginable — from classic cheese-and-potato to wild inventions — with a competition for the city's best. Cheap, cheerful and delicious; join the queue and graze.
Kraków · Small Market Square (Mały Rynek)
