Kraków, the old royal capital that survived the war

Kraków was the capital of Poland from the eleventh century until the end of the sixteenth, when the king moved his court to Warsaw. It remained the place where Polish kings were crowned and buried, and it has always kept something of the dignity of a capital: the university, the cathedral, the royal castle on its hill above the Vistula. Above all it kept its buildings. When the Second World War ended, Warsaw had been almost entirely destroyed. Kraków, though occupied for nearly six years, was not, and its old town is one of the best preserved in Europe. It was among the first sites placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, in 1978.

The square and the castle

The heart of the city is the Rynek Główny, the main market square, laid out in the thirteenth century after the Mongols destroyed the earlier town. It is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe, a vast open space lined with tall merchants' houses and cafés, with the long Renaissance Cloth Hall running down its middle. At one corner rises St Mary's Basilica, with two unequal brick towers. Every hour, a trumpeter plays a short call, the hejnał, from the taller tower, and breaks off in mid-phrase. The tradition is said to commemorate a trumpeter shot by an arrow in the throat as he sounded a warning of an attack, though the story is probably later than the custom.

From the square, the Royal Road leads south to Wawel Hill, where the castle and cathedral stand above the river. Wawel Cathedral was the coronation church of Poland's kings and is the burial place of most of them, along with national heroes and poets. The castle, rebuilt in the Renaissance with an arcaded courtyard by Italian architects, holds a famous collection of Flemish tapestries. Below the hill, a dragon of bronze breathes real fire at intervals, in honour of the legendary Wawel dragon that is said to have lived in a cave beneath the castle.

Kazimierz

South-east of the old town lies Kazimierz, once a separate town founded by King Casimir the Great in the fourteenth century, which became home to one of the most important Jewish communities in Europe. For centuries it was a centre of Jewish learning and life, with synagogues, schools and markets. The Second World War ended it. The Nazis forced the Jews of Kraków into a ghetto across the river and then deported and murdered most of them, in the camps at Bełżec, Płaszów and Auschwitz.

Kazimierz was left half empty, but its buildings survived, including several synagogues, among them the Old Synagogue, one of the oldest surviving in Poland. In recent decades the district has revived, with cafés and galleries in its squares and an annual festival of Jewish culture, and it is one of the liveliest parts of the city. Its streets were also the setting for parts of Schindler's List.

Beneath the ground and beyond

On the edge of the city lies the Wieliczka salt mine, worked from the thirteenth century until the end of the twentieth. Over the centuries the miners carved chapels, statues and even chandeliers out of the rock salt, and the largest underground chapel, St Kinga's, is a vast hall with reliefs of biblical scenes cut into its walls. It is one of Poland's most visited sights.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum lies about an hour west of the city, and many visitors go there from Kraków. It is not a sight in the usual sense, and it deserves a day of its own.

The tours

Explore Worldwide's Highlights of Poland, seven nights, runs from March to September. It starts in Warsaw and travels through Wrocław, Żagań and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia to Kraków, with the Wieliczka salt mine and the Kazimierz district.

Explore's Krakow to Budapest Adventure, seven nights, begins in Kraków and heads south through the Tatra mountains of Slovakia and the Tokaj wine region to Budapest. Explore's Highlights of Eastern Europe, fourteen nights, starts in Kraków and travels through the Pieniny National Park, Spiš Castle and the Tatras, the mining towns of central Slovakia, Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna to the Czech wine country at Mikulov.

Kraków is good at any time of year. Summer is warm and busy, and December brings a Christmas market to the main square. A few days is enough for the city itself; more if you want to see Wieliczka and Auschwitz without rushing either.