A couple of days in Krakov
Summary
Krakov is effortless old medieval beauty with its Wawel Royal Castle, Wawel Cathedral and fabulous Old Town stretching out from Europe’s largest medieval town square, and a must for a visit to Poland. I won’t write a detailed review as I was there for lash / partying, but some high level tips:
#1 Must visits are the Castle and Cathedral, but the highlight is wandering around the Old Town, which is one of the largest and prettiest in Europe
#2 Visiting in December was nice but obviously very cold and you tend to have the greyer weather. Summer, with the outdoor vibe and blue skies would be better
#3 Partying / lash is very strong in Krakov because of the huge number of students and the general rise in affluence of Poland. Be sure to hit some of the Old Town bars on your visit
#4 Try the Hot beer or “grzane piwo” which is popular in Krakov. Bit of an acquired taste, but . . . when in Rome
#5 I wish I’d taken the time for the sombre visit to Aushwitz (one hour drive from Krakov) and the supposed to be magnificent salt mines of Wieliczka (20mins drive from Krakov)
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Old Town Experiences around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone