Start in Kraków with three days, Warsaw with a week. Kraków keeps the royal centre the war spared, and the big day trips: the salt mine at Wieliczka, the memorial at Oświęcim, the Tatras above Zakopane. Warsaw is a rebuilt Old Town under towers, the city for the twentieth century. Add Gdańsk and Sopot for the Baltic, Wrocław and Poznań for market squares, Toruń for Gothic. Go east for Lublin, Białowieża and the lakes. May, September and early June are the weeks.
7 Poland city guides
Fun fact
The first UNESCO World Heritage List, drawn up in 1978, held twelve entries, and two of them were Polish: the historic centre of Kraków and the royal salt mine at Wieliczka. Poland put a city and a mine on the list before most countries had anything on it at all.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt has been in the EU since 2004 and was the only member economy to grow through 2009. A visitor meets contactless trams, a bank app that pays by code, and a rebuilt centre under a glass skyline. The grey exists in the block estates on every city's edge, and it is where most people live.
The realityRussia, Prussia and Austria partitioned Poland for 123 years until 1918, and its borders moved several hundred kilometres west in 1945. The seams show in railways, villages, market squares and food. Gdańsk, Wrocław and Szczecin became Polish within a lifetime. Kraków's coffee houses are Viennese.
The realityA continental climate means properly cold winters and properly hot summers. July regularly passes 30 degrees, the Baltic beaches are full through August, and the Masurian lakes are a warm sailing holiday. The month to fear is November.
The realityThat is the standard week, and it misses most of the country. The Baltic coast has moving dunes, a walkable spit and three cities in a row. Wrocław sits on a dozen islands. Białowieża is Europe's last big primeval lowland forest, with wild bison. Łódź has four kilometres of mill-owners' palaces.
How to fit in
- Take your shoes off when you enter someone's home. You will usually be handed slippers, and refusing them is stranger than accepting.
- Say dzień dobry when you walk into a small shop, a bakery or a doctor's waiting room, and do widzenia when you leave. It is the greeting, and it is expected.
- Give flowers in odd numbers, and never chrysanthemums. Those are for graves, and 1 November is when the whole country visits them.
- Queue properly and let people off the tram before you get on. Poles are quiet in public transport and notice those who are not.
- Treat the memorials as memorials. Sites of the occupation and the Holocaust are everywhere, and photographing yourself in front of them reads exactly as badly as it sounds.
- Accept the second helping, or say no three times. Feeding a guest is how hospitality is expressed, and one polite refusal will be taken as modesty.
Famous Polish faces
Nicolaus Copernicus
Frédéric Chopin
John Paul II
Wisława Szymborska
Andrzej Wajda
Robert Lewandowski
Agnieszka Holland
Krzysztof Penderecki
Olga Tokarczuk
Stanisław Lem
Iga Świątek
Adam Małysz
Kamil Stoch
Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Lech Wałęsa
Stefan Banach
Marian Rejewski
Ignacy Łukasiewicz
Krzysztof Kieślowski
Czesław Miłosz
Must-try Polish food
Pierogi
Boiled dumplings, fried on request. Ruskie (potato and twaróg cheese) is the default.
Bigos
Sauerkraut and cabbage stewed for days with sausage, pork and mushrooms. Better reheated.
Gołąbki
Cabbage leaves rolled round meat and rice, baked in tomato. The name means little pigeons.
Żurek
Sour rye soup with white sausage and half an egg. Tourists get it in a bread bowl.
Rosół
Clear chicken broth with noodles, first course every Sunday and the cure for everything.
Chłodnik
Cold pink soup of soured milk and young beetroot with dill, radish and egg. Summer only.
Zapiekanka
Half a baguette under mushrooms, cheese and ketchup. The late-night order in Kazimierz.
Obwarzanek krakowski
Braided bread ring from Kraków's blue carts, plain, poppy or salted. Protected by name.
Oscypek
Smoked Podhale sheep's cheese from carved moulds, grilled with cranberry in Zakopane.
Pyry z gzikiem
Jacket potatoes with twaróg beaten with cream, chives and radish. Poznań still serves it.
Pączki
Yeasted doughnuts with rose jam, eaten seriously on Fat Thursday, when queues spill out.
Sernik
Cheesecake made with twaróg, so drier, denser and less sweet than the American kind.
Kotlet schabowy
Pork chop beaten flat, breaded and fried, with potatoes and cabbage. The Sunday lunch.
Placki ziemniaczane
Crisp grated-potato pancakes with sour cream, or under goulash in the mountains.
Barszcz czerwony
Clear, sharp beetroot broth, drunk from a cup or served with uszka on Christmas Eve.
Milk bar lunch
Soup, main and compote from a subsidised bar mleczny hatch. The cheapest honest meal.
Rogal świętomarciński
Poznań's croissant of white poppy seed and nuts, eaten in quantity around 11 November.
Śledź
Herring in oil with onion or in cream with apple, served cold with a shot beside it.
Pierniki toruńskie
Toruń's spiced gingerbread, pressed in carved moulds since the Middle Ages.
Makowiec
Poppy seed rolled through sweet yeast dough. Christmas and Easter, sold all year.