Krakow, Poland

Day 1

• Rynek Główny and the Sukiennice

  Two hundred metres by two hundred: it is the largest medieval square in Europe and free to cross, though it remains a square that takes a good ten minutes to walk corner to corner. The Sukiennice, the cloth hall at its centre, has souvenir stalls on the ground floor and, upstairs, the gallery of 19th-century Polish painting, which is ticketed and which almost nobody climbs to see. The town hall tower is what is left of the municipal building demolished in 1820.

• St Mary's Basilica (Mariacki)

  The tourist entrance is ticketed (twenty złoty, ten reduced) and has a different door from the worshippers': visits run Monday to Saturday 11.30am to 6pm and on Sundays only from 2pm, because the morning belongs to services. The moment to catch is 11.50am, when Veit Stoss's altarpiece is opened with a small ceremony. From the tower the hejnał sounds every hour towards the four points of the compass and breaks off abruptly mid-note: that is the part that matters, and it is heard free from the square.

• Wawel Castle and Cathedral

  The hill and the courtyards are crossed free until evening, and what is ticketed are the individual exhibitions (royal apartments, state rooms, treasury), each with its own ticket and a daily cap: in peak months they sell out, so buy online ahead. The dragon's den costs about fifteen złoty, includes the royal gardens and admits twenty-five people at a time: you go down a narrow spiral stair and come out on the bank of the Vistula.

Day 2

• Barbican and Florian Gate

  The barbican and the Florian Gate are what remain of the walls, demolished around 1820 and replaced by the Planty, the ring of park that now encircles the old town: 4 km of green walked in 60 minutes and used by locals to get to work. The barbican is a defensive rotunda with seven turrets, among the few left in Europe: it is ticketed, but seeing it from outside and walking the Planty costs nothing.

• Schindler's Factory

  It is not a museum about Schindler but about the Nazi occupation of Kraków from 1939 to 1945, told from the city's side: the factory is the frame, not the subject. It is an immersive, dense route and needs at least 90 minutes. The ticket costs 60 złoty full and 45 reduced, with a family option at 120, and it is timed: you enter within 15 minutes of the time printed on it, and slots sell out days ahead in the busy months, so buying on the spot on a summer morning almost never works. It opens Monday 10:00-15:00 and Tuesday to Sunday 09:00-20:00, but the first Tuesday of each month it is closed. It is in Podgórze, across the river, 20 minutes on foot from Kazimierz.

• Kazimierz

  The former Jewish quarter, the centre of Jewish life in Kraków until the war and today the bar district: the surviving synagogues can be visited, and the Remuh has its 16th-century cemetery alongside. The heart of the nightlife is Plac Nowy with the okrąglak, the round kiosk at its centre, which was the kosher butchers' hall and now sells zapiekanki late into the night. Do not confuse it with the ghetto: that was in Podgórze, across the river.

Day 1

• Rynek Underground✦ hidden gem

  Beneath the main square, four metres down, lies the medieval level of the city: streets, shop foundations, objects found during the excavations, presented with holograms and projections. The ticket costs 45 złoty full and 35 reduced, with a family option at 90, and it is timed: buy online, because from the entrance on the square you cannot tell how big it is and it takes an hour and a half. The hours change from day to day, 10:00 to 19:00 on Monday, only until 15:00 on Tuesday and until 20:00 from Friday to Sunday, and the second Monday of the month it is closed. The temperature down there is constant, which helps in summer and in winter.

• Nowa Huta district✦ hidden gem

  The socialist city built from 1949 beside the steelworks, conceived as a model of working-class life and as an ideological counterweight to bourgeois, Catholic Kraków: enormous avenues, socialist-realist blocks, a radial plan around Plac Centralny. It is 30 minutes by tram from the centre and free to walk. It is the exact opposite of the old town and the way to understand 20th-century Poland without entering a museum.

• Zakrzówek quarry-lake✦ hidden gem

  A flooded former limestone quarry, its turquoise water between sheer white walls: for years people swam here illegally and there were drownings, then the city turned it into a bathing area with lifeguards, jetties and marked zones. Outside the supervised areas the bottom drops away suddenly and the water stays cold even in August. It is 20 minutes from the centre; it is free and at summer weekends it is full of locals, not tourists.

Day 2

• Obwarzanek✦ hidden gem

  The twisted ring sold from blue carts all over the city is a protected geographical indication: the obwarzanek krakowski may only be called that if made in Kraków and its surroundings, to a set specification. It costs a few złoty, comes with salt, poppy seed or sesame, and it is bread, not a pastry. Eat it within a few hours: it is an ancestor of the bagel but does not keep, and what is on sale at the end of the day is already hard.

• Żurek and oscypek✦ hidden gem

  Żurek is a sour soup of fermented rye flour, with white sausage and hard-boiled egg, often served in a hollowed loaf: it is the Easter dish, but taverns keep it all year. Oscypek is smoked sheep's cheese from the Tatras, also a protected designation, eaten grilled with cranberry jam. Watch the stalls in the centre: the real thing is sheep's milk, seasonal and expensive, and much of what sells for a euro is cow's.

Day 1

• Pierogi

  They are told apart by their filling, and the commonest are ruskie, potato and twaróg, which have nothing Russian about them: the name comes from Ruthenia. They are ordered boiled or odsmażane, pan-fried after boiling, and the second is the version worth having. In the old-town pierogarnie they cost three times what they do in neighbourhood canteens for the same handmade thing: two blocks off the Rynek halves the bill.

• Zapiekanki from Plac Nowy

  Half a baguette grilled with mushrooms, cheese and sauces, invented in the 1970s as cheap mass-produced food. The historic address is the okrąglak on Plac Nowy, the round kiosk in the middle of the Kazimierz square, open late into the night: this is what locals eat on the way home. It costs a few złoty and the variants run into dozens, but the ketchup goes on at the end and is not up for discussion.

• Obwarzanek✦ hidden gem

  The twisted ring sold from blue carts all over the city is a protected geographical indication: the obwarzanek krakowski may only be called that if made in Kraków and its surroundings, to a set specification. It costs a few złoty, comes with salt, poppy seed or sesame, and it is bread, not a pastry. Eat it within a few hours: it is an ancestor of the bagel but does not keep, and what is on sale at the end of the day is already hard.

Day 2

• Żurek and oscypek✦ hidden gem

  Żurek is a sour soup of fermented rye flour, with white sausage and hard-boiled egg, often served in a hollowed loaf: it is the Easter dish, but taverns keep it all year. Oscypek is smoked sheep's cheese from the Tatras, also a protected designation, eaten grilled with cranberry jam. Watch the stalls in the centre: the real thing is sheep's milk, seasonal and expensive, and much of what sells for a euro is cow's.

• Kazimierz

  The former Jewish quarter, the centre of Jewish life in Kraków until the war and today the bar district: the surviving synagogues can be visited, and the Remuh has its 16th-century cemetery alongside. The heart of the nightlife is Plac Nowy with the okrąglak, the round kiosk at its centre, which was the kosher butchers' hall and now sells zapiekanki late into the night. Do not confuse it with the ghetto: that was in Podgórze, across the river.