According to the Polish proverb “W marcu jak w garncu”, March in this country is a mixing pot.
As our Krakow walking tour guide explains, it’s a month that involves a little bit of everything – especially when it comes to the weather.
Standing in the blue skied Old Town of this Polish city, spring sunshine beaming down, sunglasses on and just a thin jacket in hand however, it seems hard to believe.
The blossom of Krakow’s Planta Park – a green space that wraps the UNESCO-listed Medieval Old Town of Krakow – is in full bloom and there’s daffodils dotting the green grass with uplifting splashes of yellow, as locals gather on the benches to soak it all.
Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s the perfect weather for strolling and sightseeing, although something tells me, this could all change over the next few days…
Related Posts
- Best 3 Day Itinerary for Krakow
- Top 23 Things to Do in Krakow (with 8 that are Free!)
- Visiting Auschwitz: All You Need To Know
From Manchester in March
It starts off brilliantly.
Jet2 flights to Krakow are comfortable and quick, and the brand’s generous luggage allowances and friendly staff, make heading off to Poland seamless and stress-free.
Just a 2 hour flight from Manchester airport – leaving from the snazzy and newly renovated terminal 2 – and we arrive find ourselves in Poland’s most visited destination and all-round tourist-pleaser, Krakow.
While traditionally, British travellers began descending here in the 90s, lured by cheap holidays centred around beers and vodka bars, more recently Krakow has undergone a welcomed travel makeover.
Like many of its Eastern European neighbours (my mind turns to fellow Medieval gems like Tallinn and Prague), the stag do-ers of Krakow are out, and the coffee-loving, culinary-curious, cultural explorers are in.
This is instantly reflected in the demographics of my fellow guests at the brilliantly-located, Golden Tulip Krakow City Centre, which is found just minutes outside the Old Town.
After seeing the dining room full at breakfast on the first morning, I ask the friendly-reception staff member if the hotel is usually so busy in March?
“No”, he replies, “normally we don’t get this busy until May, but spring this year has been packed with guests from all over Europe”.
And who can blame them?
With far lower prices and much thinner crowds than the traditional high season months of June, July and August, a city break to Krakow is the ideal spring getaway.
Especially if the weather plays balls.
Krakow’s Old Town
Wonderfully, our first day in Krakow, dedicated to exploring the UNESCO-listed historic centre, is wall-to-wall sunshine – ideal for getting both those steps and those sights in.
And with my Health app clocking in an impressive 29,000k steps by the end of it, it’s fair to say we got them in with gusto!
From Stare Miasto, the biggest Medieval square in Europe, with its iconic St Mary’s Basilica and Tower (don’t miss the hourly, mysterious trumpeter) through to Wawel Castle – the hill-top located chateau, once home to Polish royalty, we’ve certainly ticked off the main players.
A sneaky add-on meant checking a Da Vinci original off our list too – Lady with an Ermine – thanks to the elegantly-poised art collection at the Czartoryski Museum.
We’ve also tackled a good range of Krakow’s smaller sights too, including the Rynek Underground Museum (overrated), the floral adorned St Francis’ Church (underrated) and the oldest Polish university building.
We probably couldn’t have managed all this without being well-fuelled, so kudos to the traditional pierogies and beetroot soup at Mirror Bistro, along with the Krakow classic of Obwarzanek (the alleged grandfather of the bagel) that kept us going.
And of course, there’s were a few local breweries sampled for research purposes too!
Cultural explorers first and foremost we might be, but borsch and beers are always the perfect end to a first day in Poland!
Rebirth of Kaźmierz
Waking up the next morning, we quickly realise March’s mixing pot proverb may have proved something of a truism, as somehow, the temperature has dropped a whopping 17 degrees.
Bundling ourselves into coats, gloves and beanies, we briskly walk across the Old Town and then head south to the former Jewish district of Kaźmierz.
Dating back to the 14th century, just a 20 minute walk south from the main square in Krakow’s Old Town, Kaźmierz was once an independent city where ethnic Polish and Jewish communities coexisted, and synagogues and cathedrals rubbed shoulders.
Under the Austro-Hungarian empire, Kaźmierz relinquished its autonomy, becoming a district of Krakow, and along with neighbouring, Podgórze, continued to serve both Jewish communities of up to 80,000 and ethnic Poles.
This all changed in 1941, when the Nazi regime ordered all Jewish people into Podgórze (and ethnic Poles out), creating a ghetto where the vast majority of the population tragically died or were sent to concentration camps, including nearby horror-house Auschwitz.
By 1945, it is estimated between only 2000 and 5000 Jewish people living in Krakow had survived the Holocaust – up to 1000 of them sheltered by Oscar Schindler in his factory throughout those 4 long years.
The famous film depicting this heroic effort, Oscar-winning Schindler’s List was largely filmed in Kaźmierz and Podgórze, and Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory is now one of Krakow’s best and most popular museums – telling the story both of Krakow’s Jewish community, the city under the Nazi occupation, and the horrific events of the holocaust in the area.
Located across the river in Podgórze, it’s a powerful place to start the day.
I recommend arriving early when doors open, to beat the crowds – trailing large tour groups through the narrow corridors of this original historic building is about as much fun as it sounds.
Afterwards, I head for some emotional decompression at the neighbouring modern art museum – MOCAK – and was lucky enough to stumble into a beautiful string quartet playing amongst the gallery’s pieces – a very welcome change of tone.
Entrance to MOCAK, and the Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory, plus a whole heap of other museums and galleries is free for those sporting a Krakow City Pass. It definitely comes recommend if you plan on a lot of sightseeing in and around the city.
Heading back across the Vistula River to Kaźmierz on foot, I whip out my City Pass again, this time to enter The Old Synagogue, a fantastic place to learn more about the stories of the community it used to serve.
A key stop on the self-guided Jewish Heritage Trail, following this walking route doubles as an excellent blueprint for exploring modern Kaźmierz too.
Having undergone an incredible rebirth in recent years – from derelict town haunted by the ghosts of the past, to bustling, hipster mecca – Kaźmierz is now Krakow’s cool kid.
Boasting an impressive street art collection, array of independent design shops, some stunning quirky cafes (don’t miss Herve), as well as top live music and cocktail bars (Eszeweria comes highly recommended), Kaźmierz kicks with an upbeat energy that spills, care-free and contagiously, into the streets, especially on a Friday and Saturday evening.
Don’t miss it.
Culinary Krakow
Kaźmierz is also the hub of Krakow’s trendy culinary scene, making it the perfect place to meet our guides from local, independent tour company Eat Polska.
As a non-meat eater, the idea of undertaking a food tour in Poland has me a little sceptical, but after the first stop at Plac Nowy (a former Jewish poultry market), where we tuck into delicious Zapiekanki – it’s hot melted cheese warming us from the inside – I’m won over.
From much-loved, local restaurants like Kuchnia u Doroty, where we gorge on great bowls of steaming soup, to cute, kitsch spots like Cukiernia Czarodziej, where we huddle round small china plates of towering cream cakes, this was a wonderful walk away from Krakow’s tourist trail and into its compelling culinary catalogue, led by passionate locals, who shared with us insights on everything from pierogies to Popes.
Not only did I learnt that Polish cuisine offers a large variety of vegetarian dishes (and that the Polish Pope was a BIG deal here!), like many cultures rooted in a simple agricultural traditions, Polish cuisine is historically very veggie-heavy – the carps only coming out (of the bath no less) at Christmas!
Salt and Wax
From Medieval old towns to hipster bars, classical art museums to Christmas carp capers, this Krakow trip was certainly proving to be quite the proverbial March mixing pot.
Which is why we couldn’t possibly leave Krakow without going down a 300km deep salt mine and then staring a plastic-faced Putin in the eye.
Luckily, both could be combined easily into our third and final day in Poland – a much-needed indoor day, given the continued climatic plummet our Krakow trip was witness to!
As snowflakes swirled around us, the tour pick-up bus mercifully ushered us straight from the Jet2holidays hotel, the Golden Tulip Krakow City Centre to the UNESCO-listed Wieliczka Salt Mine in a warm easy ride, before the 800 steps down into the mine got us back to an ambient, stable temperature!
In 90 minutes you’re only able to discover a tiny 3% of this vast underground network – which boasts a hard-to-wrap-your-head-around 287km of salt chambers and passageways – but it’s enough to get a good flavour for this mineral mine…especially if you give the walls a quick lick!
As we pass underground lakes and chapels we’re shown how, historically, Wieliczka supported the culture of a whole community, as well as the economy of a whole country.
The mine also has incredibly clean air – no pollutants, bacteria or viruses down here apparently – so make sure you take in deep lungful’s of the stuff (especially if you’ve overindulged on the piwo the night before), or stay a little longer and check-in at the mine health resort.
Be it a half day visit like ours, or an recuperation trip of a few nights, when you emerge and head back to Krakow, there’s only place to round off your visit to this city – the Polonia Wax Museum.
For the TikTok-curious, it’s a great place to get a feel for what it takes to go viral on this platform.
The answer, in this instance, being very little!
Which is exactly what makes this atrociously bad wax museum so very brilliant.
Struggling to remember the last time I laughed so much, despite the array of poorly depicted celebrities (a nose-less SpongeBob SquarePants and a fingerless Winston Churchill were just 2 of the top exhibits), this so-bad-its-good wax museum has to be seen to be believed.
Top of my bill were the sin-bin politicians – Putin, Trump and Hitler – but others couldn’t resist the music stars of Elton, Mick Jagger and the Beatles, or the diabolical Harry Potter collection of barely recognisable Hagrid, Ron and Hermione.
Our hour long trail through the terrible collection was accompanied by side splitting laughter and most of us agreeing it was the highlight of the trip – perhaps we weren’t quite the cultural connoisseurs in Krakow we’d claimed to be!
PIN IT TO PINTEREST!
My trip to Krakow was gifted by Jet2 but, as always, all views are my own.
This page contains affiliate links meaning Big World Small Pockets may receive a small commission on any purchases at no extra cost to you.
Just enter your details below and I'll email it you - simple!
Information will be sent to the email provided above
