Poland - S/D?

I'm going to be visiting Krakow and Zakopane for a few days at the end of the month. What should I check out/visit/see/do/eat/drink/party? Any suggestions?

There is a salt mine near Krakow that always sounds like the greatest thing ever to visit.

i heard about this, yeah - i think it's worth seeing but don't know much about it.

any good museums? i'm particularly interested in pre-war history, mythology, arts and culture etc...

This is prob completely not what you're after, but you could go to Auschwitz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieliczka_Salt_Mine#Photo_tour

Looks amazing.

We considered a visit to Auschwitz, but decided against it, for various, probably quite apparent reasons.

Has anyone ever been to it? It would seem like an obvious place to go to, but I could imagine it as being like a depressing theme park of death.

this is the reason... i'm torn between the fact i'm so near and really ought to go, and the fact i'm in Poland to have a nice time and not get really depressed...

i went to poland (zakopane too, coincidentally) when i was 12, and i was taken to auschwitz. i'm really, really glad of that (and also that it wasn't a massive group of tourists - just my family and a local taxi driver who drove us there), it was a pretty affecting experience. it definitely didn't feel like a tacky theme park of death, though that was in 1995 - it was grey and sombre and quiet.

i kind of think of visiting auschwitz - and also the holocaust memorial when i was in berlin - as just paying one's respects, rather than being some sort of ghoulish death tourist.

the wieliczka salt mines are GREAT! you go down in an elevator that takes you something like 80 stories underground? and you can lick the walls! (i didn't)

the tourist group i was with when i visited auschwitz were mostly british soccer hooligan-y types who talked throughout the entire thing, even in the portions where you're instructed to remain quiet out of respect

i went out dancing in krakow at this complex that had something like four or five clubs in it - can't remember the name but it was fun, kinda student-y iirc

also if you're up for walking a lot, i don't think i took public transit once in krakow, it's small enough that i walked pretty much everywhere. although it'll probably be very cold when you go so you may want to go the trolley route

Krakow is lovely but it's lousy with backpackers.

some recs:

- go to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. it rules
- do not go to Auschwitz. do you want to know why i broke down there? because people were walking...their...dogs. and filming the entire thing like it was a normal tourist attraction. made me fucking ill.

in krakow:
- go to the bars in Kazimierz. they're much less touristy, and they also tend to be filled with people who have some English.
- you MUST MUST MUST visit the amazing flea market if you're there during a weekend. ask around, it's easy to find.
- the museums are all really nice.
- also, tbh, Krakow was preserved by the Nazis because Hitler considered it to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. so pre-war history is all around.

in Zakopane:
- eat some smoked sheep cheese and get a hunter's dinner. hearty, deliciously awesome food
- if you're down for a hike or it's accessible, Morskie Oko is a beautiful spot. evidence:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1096/4593052032_ac69447ddb.jpg
- say hello to the lambs for me

oh, and also, though Zywiec is standard, i rec Perla highly.

i kind of think of visiting auschwitz - and also the holocaust memorial when i was in berlin - as just paying one's respects, rather than being some sort of ghoulish death tourist.

slightly o/t - the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is a thing of wonder in its own right and would be worth visiting even if it was not a memorial to anything.

Destroy Bydgoszcz unless you're a speedway nut. Oh and maybe its basilica although it's not as impressive as they all like to think. Oh, and the old KGB building is now a McDonalds.

Another recommendation for the salt mines. Are you hostelling?

Also I stumbled across a pretty fun drum n bass club while I was in Krakow, with a single DJ playing a five hour(!) set of jump up. Couldn't tell you exactly where it was, or if it's still running though.

not hostelling, hotelling as we're only there a couple of days or so. it's a 30th birthday present from my g/f :-)

Poland is a really great country to visit! We were so busy doing groovy stuff and we didn't even get a chance to visit the salt mines :-( Will have to go back again. The Kazimierz district was great fun and the people were friendly, Zakopane was liek another world and the cable car nearly made me lose my lunch (in a fun way), The Wawel Castle, the altar and church. Amazing. Go there.

Zakopane was liek another world and the cable car nearly made me lose my lunch

I went looking for the cable car there and was told repeatedly it didn't exist!

i will be spending a week here at the end of the month. can't wait!
i didn't really think much of the salt mine, but you guys have me considering it now.

another +1 for the salt mine. It's great. There was a brass band down there when I went.

Favorites in Warsaw, Lublin, and Lviv (I know, not Poland)?

The skansen in Lublin is fun. It's a short distance outside town. Majdanek concentration camp is definitely worth seeing if you are interested. Again, it's not far away via bus or taxi.

The Boim family chapel in Lviv is interesting. So is the Sobieski palace. It has been a while but the opera was really good when I was there last.

Someone was telling me about two incredible-sounding cafes in Lviv apartment blocks, one of which is themed around the Ukrainian resistance. You are met by an armed guard and made to swear, in jest, that none of your party are Russians. The other has an entrance that's a Soviet-style apartment complete with resident family whose door you have to knock on. I'll try to dig up the details tomorrow.

Happened to click on this thread and by coincidence I found out yesterday that the beer Zywiec is pronounced Zhih-vitz in Polish.

Have fun pronouncing Łańcut vodka correctly!

The apartment cafe in Lviv is called Mason Cafe, i think, and the Ukrainian resistance one is Kryvia. The owner also has a Jewish theme restaurant which has drawn a lot of criticism around the world for reinforcing stereotypes so you might choose to give them all a miss, though.

Thanks, SV, will consider these!

Have fun! How are you traveling around?

Train. Just a quick, 10-day trip to visit a friend temporarily in Warsaw. I stayed in Poland for a few months back in the late 90s and I'm excited to return.

Krakow thread just reminded me i'll be in Łódź for the first time shortly. Any recommendations for food, drink, music, etc? Manafaktura looks interesting.

“Which countries suffered the biggest busts?” says Leszek Balcerowicz, an economist and former deputy prime minister who was the architect for the country’s most important reforms. “Those that previously had the booms. One of the main reasons why we did not suffer a recession is because we didn’t allow the boom to develop.”

^

love this

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-27/how-poland-became-europes-most-dynamic-economy

I reckon, of all the people i know around the world on middle-class incomes, my Polish colleagues have the most enviable quality of life. Lots of people have been affected by the economic crisis but if you're earning an above median salary it's a terrific place to be. Good public infrastructure, lots of job opportunities, plenty of great family housing, etc.

None of that is as surprising as the Business Week article seems to think, though. It's a big country with skilled manual workers, lots of young people and an excellent education system where it's common to pick up two foreign languages - and it's right next door to Germany. It couldn't really be any more ideally placed to benefit from the inter-EU shift of jobs away from high-wage economies. I'm extremely sceptical when people start talking about "business-friendly politicians" and "painful but necessary reforms" being the key drivers that need to be replicated elsewhere.

given the panglossian outlook of the article id have expected better growth projections than 2.5%

Mildly random but I need to buy a present for someone in Poland - either something nice for their house, a really nice houseplant or art materials ... but something that feels like a treat.

If I was trying to avoid amazon.pl ... are there any obvious recommendations? It doesn't seem to make sense to post something from the UK at the moment.

They're in Inowroclaw, if that helps.

Empik sells art stuff:

https://www.empik.com/kreatywne

Empik is good for art materials. Also try allegro.pl, they sell loads of stuff

(agreeing with scampo, obv)

Thanks both.