"A tiny minority even in their own quarter"

Of nuns, tea houses and Krakow's fascinating history...

Sophie Ibbotson

We checked in to ‘Greg and Tom’s’, encountered solely by chance, often rated as the best hostel in Eastern Europe and, sometimes, the world. Huge rooms, chic décor and not a school trip or stag party in sight, we were given a two bedroom apartment on Jana St, slap bang in the town centre. Krakow’s most popular club is about three doors down, while the best restaurants are all within stumbling distance. In fact, it doesn’t feel like a hostel at all but rather like staying at the house of a friend whilst they are out of town. We’ve got everything we need to hand, and can simply get on with exploring the city.

Centred round its old town, Krakow, seems as if the architects designed it with tourists in mind. As you approach the main square every angle gives you a chocolate-box view of immaculately maintained houses, sections of historic city wall and elegant castle turrets. Cobbled streets are lined with boutiques, bustling restaurants and traditional bars, and every street corner seems to host a stall selling hot, fresh pretzels coated in sesame seeds.

As I write, we’re sat on piles of cushions in a tea house in Krakow’s Jewish quarter – the Kazimierz. The aromas of a hundred or so types of tea mingle in the air with the sweet-smelling smoke of water pipes. Polish folk songs are playing to the accompaniment of a guitar, and an old man is sat by the door, watching the world go by.

Today Kazimierz is bustling once again, but it is harrowing to think that in the 1930s and early 40s it turned almost overnight from a commercial hub into a squalid, over-crowded ghetto and then into a ghost town. Auschwitz is just a matter of miles from Krakow, and it’s there that many of the city’s Jewish community met their fate, the weight of history hangs heavily in the air. Some Jewish families have returned to live and work in the Kazimierz and they’ve restored a number of historic synagogues and opened a museum to the atrocities, but they remain a tiny minority even in their own quarter.