Indeed, it seems that the 1.3 million Polish who have headed to Britain and Ireland over the last three or four years are gradually heading back home where prospects are seemingly greater. Good news for an increasingly robust Poland, bad news for bitter hacks and tabloid editors in this country keen to report how the Poles were coming over and nicking our jobs.
Perhaps nowhere is this general well-being more evident than in Krakow, Poland’s second city. Elegantly positioned smack bang in the centre of continental Europe – almost equidistant between Lisbon in the west and the easternmost Urals the other side – Krakow has undergone its fair share of turbulence and come away relatively intact. Today the city is thriving. Since the 1940’s its population has quadrupled and now hovers around the 800,000 mark, all of whom seem very satisfied with the city they are living in.
And so they should be. Earlier this year the Observer and Guardian travel awards declared it the second best overseas city on the planet, narrowly losing out to Sydney. In 1978 UNESCO were so impressed with the place that they added the cities historic centre to the list of World Heritage Sites and it was the European City of Culture 2000. Frankly, it’s not difficult to see why. With a cerebral reputation stretching back to the nineteenth century, it has long been regarded as the cultural, intellectual, scientific and artistic soul of Poland. It manages to achieve a delicate balance of being both traditional and modern, and is hip, without being snootily so. An example of this diversity is neatly illustrated by the three Noble Prize winners Krakow has produced: of the three, two were poets (Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz), and the other, John Paul II, became Pope.
The University of Krakow is the second oldest in central Europe (after the University of Prague) and dates back to 1364. Academic life was ravaged during the Second World War, but the educational system has regained a firm presence: at the time of writing, Krakow can boast 23 universities and other institutions of higher education. The dramatic industrialisation that occurred in the 1940s and ’50s, including a massive steel mill in the Nova Huta district, somewhat diluted the intellectual nature of the place, but these days the industrial and the intellectual manage to co exist in relative harmony. Investment, property and tourism are all growing in Krakow and many influential multinationals have a presence here, including Google, IBM and Motorola. As such, unemployment levels are way below the national average.
The heart of Krakow lies in the Old Town, a compact, easy-to-negotiate area home to the best museums, galleries, bars, clubs, restaurants and hotels. It is said that the Old Town and neighbouring Kazimierz district has the highest density of bars and clubs in the world, but pretty much every city in the world has made a similar claim at some point or another, so perhaps it can be taken lightly. There is a snappy nightlife though, and in a well worn yet still entirely appropriate phrase, it’s a nightlife that caters to all tastes. Many of the bars and clubs are below ground – if not physically, then at least in spirit – and they can be as decadent or sophisticated as you like. If budget allows, the Piano Rouge in the Old Town provides plush surroundings, jazz, all manner of cocktails, and snacks that are guaranteed to break both your wallet and your waistline. There are many more raucous bars (and indeed many more sophisticated ones) and to list all the available hot spots would be an exercise in futility, but Propaganda in Kazimierz has a decent reputation and many locals and travellers swear by Nic Nowengo’s, an Irish bar in the Old Town that serves excellent, hangover-easing breakfasts.
Outside of the very centre of the city, the district of Podgorze is well worth a visit. Over the other side of the Pilsudski bridge, Podgorze has recently attracted a bohemian crowd of artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers and students who all seem perfectly content to laze around in the relaxed atmosphere. Visitors may recognise parts of it from Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List, including parts of the old ghetto wall and Schindler’s factory itself, which stands eerily quiet except when the occasional concert is held here. Podgorze is an area where tourists seldom venture but this, inevitably, looks set to change, especially with the proposed sprucing up of the waterfront scheduled to commence next year.
As with much of Krakow, Podgorze has decent bars in spades, and some pretty good places to lay your head at night too, notably the Qubus spa hotel, complete with rooftop panoramic pool. Elsewhere in the city, the Greg Tom Hostel was recently voted in the top 10 European hotels by the Times and can lay claim to all manner of snazzy up-to-date (indeed, futuristic) features, including a vast home cinema system. Considered the swankiest hotel is Copernicus, a magnificently restored place on the delightful Ul Kanonicza in the Old Town. Unfortunately, and this always seems to be the way, such surroundings and magnificence come at a magnificent price.
