The journey
A journey through history, nature and Polish cuisine — from the capital rebuilt after the war to the medieval jewel of Kraków, via villages on the Vistula and mountain canyons on the Slovak border.
Warsaw is a city with the courage of rebirth. Razed to the ground by 85% during World War II, it was rebuilt brick by brick — the Old Town (Stare Miasto), a UNESCO site, is the most moving testament to this determination. The Palace of Culture and Science, a gift from Stalin, dominates the centre with its Soviet bulk. The history of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Uprising Museum tell the most dramatic chapters of twentieth-century Poland.
Kraków is Poland's medieval jewel, miraculously unscathed during the war. Wawel Castle, residence of Polish kings, overlooks the Vistula with its cathedral where Poland's greatest figures rest. The Market Square (Rynek Główny) — the largest medieval square in Europe — is an open-air theatre: the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall), St Mary's Basilica with its famous Veit Stoss altarpiece, and horse-drawn carriages crossing the square. The Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, made famous by Spielberg's film, is today the city's bohemian heart with bars, galleries and restored synagogues.
The sobering but essential Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, an hour from Kraków, is a place of memory that leaves no one indifferent — a necessary pilgrimage to understand the weight of history.
The picturesque village of Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula, with its Renaissance houses, castle ruins and art galleries — a place beloved by Polish painters since the nineteenth century. Nałęczów, a spa town set in greenery.
In the eastern interior: the Pieniny Mountains, a natural gem on the Slovak border. The Pieniny National Park offers the famous rafting along the Dunajec River canyon — a descent on a wooden raft between three-hundred-metre vertical limestone walls, guided by góral boatmen in traditional costume. The nearby medieval monastery of Červený Kláštor, just across the Slovak border. Szczawnica, a picturesque spa town and the rafting's arrival point.
The second visit to Poland after 2005, confirming that this country offers far more than you'd expect.
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