Nothing compares to its terrific and specific spirit; full of tourists which are under a great impression of the beauty of its monuments; placed in a centre of Europe looks like unique jewel in its crown. All those statements might only refer to one city: Krakow. Many years ago one of the well-known polish artists said that if you want to find the soul of Poland, you have to seek Krakow. And still you can’t disagree with that.

The present capital of Poland is Warsaw. But before that this name belonged to Krakow – the only city that almost entirely survived after the War World II. Probably because of that Krakow still has the millennium-old architecture which brings a feeling that it comes from a fairytale, from the land where the time stopped. But this city never sleeps! All its streets are full of happy and optimistic people who are eagerly to sing, laugh and having fun. Specially at nights you can see a lots of students that came from all over the Europe to study at well-known University of Krakow and participate in a great student nightlife. There will be no trouble with finding a nice place to sit and drink a good wine or a traditional polish vodka. People in Krakow are very friendly and even if you’ll reach the market-place too late someone will not only point you an accurate spot to sit in but also take you there and have fun with you.

Krakow’s market-place is one of the biggest one in Europe. The vast Cloth Hall dominates the centre of the square, while ancient churches, and restaurants are arrayed around it edges (among them are even almost seven hundred years old restaurant as the Wierzynek). If you get outside the square you can make yourself a great trip to Wawel Castle (full of precious items left by the royalty that lived their for five hundred years), Cathedral, Dragon’s Lair (a cave with a sculpture of the mythical dragon in front of it), famous Juliusz Slowacki Theatre, the most popular in the whole Krakow St Florian’s Street (with St Florian’s Gate that is leading to Barbican), and also old and fancy new krakow hotels (for example Ostoya Palace Hotel that is from XIX century).

Seeing all the beauty of Krakow you can’t forget about the sad history that is connected with. You can’t forget about Auschwitz that is 30 miles away from Krakow. The remains of Auschwitz are horrific memorial to the death of millions of people that were killed in concentration camps made as an implement to the Nazi policy of spoliation, degradation and extermination of the Jews.