KrakowTravel Guide

The areas and addresses our writers put first

• Tomasz Zielonka

  Kazimierz

  The former Jewish quarter trades grandeur for soul: boutique hotels in converted tenements and mills, candlelit courtyards, and the city's best food and bar scene on the doorstep.

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• The Main Market Square and around

  Krakow

  Within a few streets of the great square you find Krakow's oldest names: the Grand Hotel, receiving guests in belle-epoque style since the late nineteenth century, and Hotel Pod Roza, often cited as the city's oldest…

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• The Planty ring

  Krakow

  Around the leafy ring that encloses the Old Town, grand nineteenth-century buildings house solid upper-mid-range hotels.

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• Podgorze and beyond

  Krakow

  Across the river, Podgorze offers newer hotels, lower prices and its own layered history, with the Old Town a tram hop or riverside walk away.

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Tables worth crossing the city for

• Przypiecek

  Krakow

  Przypiecek, on Sławkowska Street a few minutes from the main square, is the city's famous 24-hour pierogarnia — a tiny room where the dumplings are rolled and pinched in view and the clientele shifts from tourists at…

  A Pierogi Lover's Guide to KrakowSee on the map

• Pierogarnia Krakowiacy

  Krakow

  Pierogarnia Krakowiacy, near the square on Szewska Street, leans traditional — folk aprons, long menus of boiled and fried classics, generous portions.

  A Pierogi Lover's Guide to KrakowSee on the map

• Starka

  Krakow

  Starka, on Józefa Street, is a warm, wood-panelled dining room known for its house-infused vodkas; its pierogi arrive properly buttered and are best chased with a cherry or quince shot.

  A Pierogi Lover's Guide to KrakowSee on the map

• Milkbar Tomasza

  Krakow

  Milkbar Tomasza, on Świętego Tomasza Street in the old town, is a gently modernised take on the genre — pierogi and placki (potato pancakes) at canteen prices.

  A Pierogi Lover's Guide to KrakowSee on the map

• Pod Wawelem

  Krakow

  Carnivores wanting a broader Polish feast with their dumplings can book Pod Wawelem by the castle hill — a boisterous beer-hall of schnitzels, shanks and pierogi under Wawel's walls.

  A Pierogi Lover's Guide to KrakowSee on the map

• Pierogi Festival

  Krakow

  And if you visit in August, the Pierogi Festival on Mały Rynek gathers dozens of makers in one square — the fastest possible education.

  A Pierogi Lover's Guide to KrakowSee on the map

The things that justify the trip

• Daniel Splisser

  Tyniec

  Where the Vistula bends southwest of the city, the Benedictine abbey of Tyniec has stood on its limestone cliff for roughly a thousand years.

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• Podgórze

  Krakow

  Cross a footbridge over the Vistula and you are in Podgórze, the district that carries the heaviest history — the wartime ghetto's memorial square with its haunting empty chairs, and the Schindler's Factory museum in…

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• Kościuszko Mound

  Krakow

  West of the center rises one of Krakow's peculiar man-made mounds, raised two centuries ago in honor of the national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko.

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• Nowa Huta

  Krakow

  Ride the tram east to Nowa Huta, the socialist-realist district built from scratch in the postwar years as a workers' ideal city.

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• Town Hall Tower

  Krakow

  The lone surviving piece of Krakow's demolished town hall leans very slightly and rises right out of the Main Square.

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• Krakus Mound

  Krakow

  In Podgorze, south of the river, this prehistoric mound is the oldest of them all, linked by legend to the city's founder, King Krakus.

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