Krakow

While the rest of the country was being blasted during WWII, Krakow emerged from the war largely unscathed. As a result the city is now home to a unique mix of the old and the new that you won’t find in any other Polish city.

Kraków’s postcard-perfect old town comes complete with Europe’s largest medieval market square and even a fairy-tale castle overlooking the river. Architecturally it can easily match any European city arch for arch, spire for spire, monument for monument, gargoyle for gargoyle.

Auschwitz

Without being heavy-handed, the history of the site is presented in all of its contexts and guests are perhaps spared from fully surrendering to their emotions only by the sheer relentlessness of the information. No matter how much you think you know on the subject, the perspective gained by visiting is incomparable.

Nowa Huta is one of the largest planned socialist realist settlements or districts ever built (another being Magnitogorsk in Russia) and “one of the most renowned examples of deliberate Social Engineering ” in the entire world.