Why you should book your trip to Krakow Asap
You should book a trip to Krakow NOW! I mean ASAP! Why, you may ask? Krakow is one of those utterly charming little towns that looks like a completely different place when you go sightseeing during the day and when you end up in a club at 4am a few hours later. It`s simultaneously very old artsy and bohemian and at the same time full of young students, exploring life abroad and making questionable choices along the way. So here is my list of reasons explaining why I think if you have to visit one place in Poland, you should go to Krakow:
The beautiful historical centre
Krakow’s city centre has such a charismatic atmosphere, it’s borderline absurd. There is an abundance of tiny little cute shops, cafés, restaurants, bars and pubs that make the whole place absolutely charming and make you want to just close your eyes and enjoy the buzz around.
Nightlife
As mentioned earlier, this Polish town is quite the party place. They say New York is the city that never sleeps…well they’ve obviously never been to Krakow. A bit of an exaggeration of course, but it’s quite surprising how much life there is in such a small city (yeah yeah it’s the second largest city in the country but when you compare it to London or New York….it’s miniscule.) There are people drinking and having a blast EVERYWHERE at all times after dark. Something intriguing I noticed was an activity that reminded me of a pub crawl, but instead of drinking beers in a few locations over the course of the night, people were drinking vodka shots. Enter the first bar, drink two shots, then leave and go to the next one, drink 3 more, then go and the whole thing continues until you finally feel confident enough that you’ve mastered Michael Jackson’s moonwalk and deem it absolutely necessary to prove it to everyone willing to dance with you. Yep, what can I say, how can you not love Poland <3
The rooftop views are INSANE
If you know me at least a little bit you’re definitely aware of my slight obsession with rooftop views. And I found an amazing one in Krakow, on the terrace of the Academy of Music (or Akademia Muzyczna in Polish). How brilliant is this view of the city centre?
Ancient history
The city dates back to the 7th century and one of the most fascinating things that caught my attention when I was there was the underground museum beneath the Main Square. It was extremely interesting to find out how everyday life looked like for the people soooooooo many centuries ago. Here is a snippet of what the website of the museum describes you can find there:
“Underneath Cracow Main Square is an odyssey into past, brought to life centuries later by a group of archaeologists. It is a sanctuary full of construction and architecture relics, stone paths with grooves worn by the wheels of wagons transporting goods in the times of the King Wladyslaw Lokietek, the oldest brick constructions of trading buildings, ornaments, coins, any many other objects lost or left here on purpose by the ones visiting this place ages ago.” http://www.podziemiarynku.com/index.php?dzial=oszlaku&tekst=6
Because Krakow has the most awesome city park I’ve seen
Ok it’s not like there aren’t any cities with impressive English gardens and parks, but this one is a little different. It goes almost all around the historical centre and if you don’t feel like walking from point A to point B through the confusing alleyways you can just go and follow the park and you’ll end up where you want to go much faster (at least that was the case for me).
Because…they got a castle on a hill
I mean need I say more?!