Krakow, Poland
By the time we were done with Berlin, we had spent eight weeks on this backpacking trip and we were starting to feel homesick. However, we knew that we still had some distance to cover, as we needed to make our way across the German border and over to Krakow, deep in the heart of Poland. We were hoping to book an overnight train, but couldn’t figure out the website for Polish trains. Thankfully, we found an overnight bus that would do the trick. Leaving from Berlin’s central bus station at 12:20 AM, we crammed into a double-decker and tried our best to get some sleep. While the German roads were smooth and quiet, the Polish roads were not so hospitable, and our seats felt more like massage chairs than beds. Regardless, we made it to Krakow without a problem, and had a few days to spend in this beautiful old city.

Even though Warsaw is the capital and largest city in Poland, Krakow was Poland’s historic capital for centuries, and continues to be a dazzling cultural center replete with universities and old world charm.

Encircled by a narrow park that replaced the ancient city walls, Krakow is a very green city with an active population of cyclists and pedestrians. At the city’s center, the enormous Main Square contains a couple of churches and a Renaissance-style market arcade known as The Cloth Hall.

The city has had its share of fires throughout the years, so the current iteration consists of brick and stone buildings built in a grid several centuries ago.

The fun neighborhood of Krakow is called Kazimierz, which was the city’s old Jewish quarter. While only a fraction of the city’s Jewish population remains, this district is now loaded with bars and restaurants. While we enjoyed all of the food and drink we had in Krakow, we most enjoyed their pierogarnias — small restaurants that specialized in making pierogies.


We ate pierogies all over the city, but our favorite place was Przystanek Pierogarnia. It is a tiny corner shop that’s probably less than 100 square feet, but they cooked up the best handmade pierogies we have ever had, accompanied by a small serving of caramelized onions.
We had a lot of fun in Krakow, but we also knew that we needed to take in the city’s most sobering sight while we were out there. On our last day, we arranged for a van to take us on a tour of the network of concentration and extermination camps in Auschwitz.

Although the camps are a ninety minute drive from Krakow, it was absolutely essential that we took the trip out there. The Nazis did their best to destroy any evidence of extermination, but the museum does an excellent job of laying out the size and scope of the horrors that occurred. The museum has thousands of pictures of inmates, bags of hair, pots and pans, and other artifacts that help to convey the magnitude of the atrocities committed there and the sheer logistics involved in rounding up and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people.

From its culinary highs to its historic lows, Krakow was an incredible city, and we are glad we took the time to visit.