How to hang with the cool cats. |Without the nasty price tag|

Sifting through vintage stores & flea markets, visiting cool dive bars that seem relatively untouched by tourist. Enjoying coffee in a 200 year old European coffee house, watching the locals stroll past while imagining there backstory.

Your probably got a very vivid picture of somewhere like Berlin in your head don’t you? Now you’re probably wondering how you’re going to pick up those extra shifts in between all the studying you have, to save up enough for a decent weekend away? The good news is, you don’t have to worry. Because your not going to Berlin, you’re coming to Krakow.

“But isn’t Auschwitz there? That doesn’t sound like much fun”

It’s true Krakow has galleries and churches around every other corner. This is due to fact it was barely touched during WW2. Its rich history with some very dark parts are a big draw card. while we highly recommend doing all this while here. There is much more than meets the eye in Krakow.

Penny Pinching

Unlike some of the other more well known “hipster” European cities, Krakow is very friendly on your wallet. Especially if coming from the UK, where 1 GBP can get you almost 5PLN, that’s the average price of a pint or if you head to one of the famous Vodka bars, you can pick up one of the many weird and interesting flavored shots for the same price.

Beyond The Old Town.

There’s a lot more on offer once you venture out of the old town. One of our favorite spots is FORUM przestrzenie. It is a communist era hotel looking over the Wisla river, towering six stories in the air. It was abandoned before fully completed. Now transformed into what can only be described as a contemporary culture center of underground music, food and art. While the main focus of forum is a laid back restaurant & bar with easily Krakow’s biggest & best beer garden, there are multi purpose spaces that play host to, mini festivals, pop up fashion stores, there’s even a vintage barber store tucked away. As of just recently, the basement has been converted from a strip club into what’s proving to be one the best techno spots in Poland (more on that here).

The Old vs The New

When it comes to food, we are lucky in Krakow. if you are willing to do a bit of exploring you will be greatly rewarded. With such a strong Slovak influence you can eat out at some of the best traditional restaurants in Krakow for a very reasonable price (stay away from the main square). Krakow has also adapted very well to the rest of the world’s tastes with a decent size food truck park a short walk from the old town, vendors rotate on a regular basis. On the other side of Krakow a much smaller version with only 8 vendors tucked away in the Jewish quarters you will find something that fits every ones taste buds, for more info check out out in depth food guide here.(Krakow is also very very Vegan friendly)

Thrift Stores Galore.

We’re not saying it’s going to be easy searching through the piles of old clothes but if thrift stores are what you looking for you will have a great time exploring the basement stores of Krakow, for a detailed list our friends at Krakow Crawl have put together a list of the 10 best thrift stores to check out.

Dolne Młyny District

Keeping in line with Krakow’s love to reuse and revamp. Once a tobacco factory, it has been re purposed into a 15,000 m2 town inside a town within minutes walking distance from the main square. Still in the early stages it consists of restaurants, boutiques, shops concept, art studios, gym, Arts and Dance club, cafes. All completely independent but cooperating to create something special.

There are many more reasons to make Krakow your next destination, for more in depth guides on Krakow’s nightlife,techno scene, thrift stores, coffee house and others spots, check out some of our other posts.