Escape: Too good for the new Barbarians

This is the moment for Lucas and Bardek, a pair of security guards, to work quickly through the throng, nabbing all those tourists — or as many as they can grab — who took videos of the moment and who had been too mean to pay their 5 zlotys (about 75p) for a photography ticket.

I’d like 5 zlotys for every time somebody has suggested Krakow is going to be the next Prague, the next must-see destination. It’s unfair on both cities. But you can understand the thinking; they are both easy places to visit — particularly now you can fly from Edinburgh with Czech Airlines and march into Poland with just a wave of your Euro-passport. They both have beautiful old cities, medieval squares, castles on a hill, much-loved rivers but also, as someone cynically put it, cheap beer, cheap food and beautiful women.

The portents are ominous. Pick up the Prague Post and you’ll find constant debate as to what went wrong, how they managed to end up with so many drunken tourists staggering down their cobbled streets, hen parties tripping off cheap flights wearing nurses’ outfits and websites with names like PraguePissup.com. Low-cost carriers have already taken aim at Krakow; a new service starts from London in a couple of months advertising fares from £13 each way. According to a Krakow guidebook: “Locals will be eternally grateful to their Anglo-Saxon guests if they veer towards the James Bond model of gallantry, rather than that of Aethelred the Barbarian”. There’s little chance of that, I’m afraid.

High above the midday melee in St Mary’s, Lech Czerwinski is preparing to blow his own trumpet to the glory of Krakow. A member of the municipal fire brigade, Czerwinski is one of the musicians detailed to perform the hejnal mariacki at the four sides of the high tower every hour on the hour, every day of the year.

It’s a haunting little tune that stops abruptly, re-enacting the moment in 1241 when a watchman woke the city to warn of invaders and received a Tatar arrow in his throat — a literal glottal stop — mid-alarm. Seems to me if I was announcing the sudden arrival of barbarian hordes, I’d probably play something a bit more urgent and rousing than this mournful lullaby. But Polish radio transmits the call live every day at noon and it has the highest listening figures of any programme.

Czerwinski and those who climb his gothic spire have the best views, looking down on the Rynek Glowny, the old town square, the largest medieval meeting place in Europe, and on the pale-yellow Renaissance cloth hall, its ancient commercial core. From there, a grid of cobbled streets march off into the middle distance.

The square is so vast I liked to think of it in terms of neighbourhoods: the flower market, the horse-drawn carriage rank, the pigeon patch and the statue of Adam Mickiewicz, popular meeting place for generations of Krakowians. And as befits a medieval market square, there are buskers everywhere, from the little boy in a Mozart wig and knickerbockers scraping his violin to traditional old Polish bands and, of course, the pan pipes of the Andes.

At this time of year, the margins of Rynek Glowny are filled with outdoor cafes and most people quickly find a favourite. Every corner used to have its identifying letter and locals still talk about the oldest cafes being on the A-B line to the north. The best place to people-watch, though, is the area beside the cloth hall where the old Krakow aristocracy gather with their coiffed pooches every Sunday morning after mass for coffee and sachertorte (Krakow used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian empire).

“I don’t know what they do with their dogs during mass,” said Anna, thoughtfully. Every Wednesday at 6pm an ad hoc group gathers in the premises of the Catholic Intelligence Club in Sienna Street for a soupçon of English conversation and possibly a beer afterwards. A street sign encourages foreigners to join in and I’d recommend it. While tourists meet Krakowians and make new friends, the locals have a chance to practise their English.

That night our conversation roamed freely from the cost of petrol in Krakow to great bars and the best late-night snack after a night in the pub: the grilled sausages at Hala Targowa, in case you’re wondering.

Food is a constant theme in Krakow, a city where you don’t need grey hair to remember a time when being on the bread line meant standing in a queue. Anna, who is in her early thirties, remembers queuing as fun. “But then I was just a little girl. And you could meet a lot of your friends in the queues.” There’s no shortage these days and restaurants are springing up “like mushrooms after the rain” she adds.

Unlike many cities that are developing a new style of cooking, Krakow revels in its traditional dishes. A restaurant called Chlopskie Jadlo, serving peasant cooking in rustic surroundings, proved so successful it has opened branches across town. One night I tucked into a big tin cup of lard. Just as expensive restaurants in the UK bring you a little amuse bouche with the compliments of the chef, the people at Chlopskie Jadlo bring you a mug of solidified pork dripping to accompany your sourdough bread. It’s fantastic. Take my word for it. After adding a big plate of bigos, the traditional sausage and sauerkraut stew, my bill came to about £3.50. Krakow’s restaurants are extremely cheap by our standards but it’s worth knowing that come the final reckoning, if you say “thank you” when you hand over your money, it means “keep the change”.

I didn’t have the heart to explain to Tomasz that I didn’t mean to tip him double the fare for our golf-cart trip to Kazimierz. Besides, he was a poor student, albeit a student of economics and international finance and well-qualified to calculate the sudden boost to his bank balance.

Krakow has a lot of students — as many as 300,000 during term time — which explains the lively atmosphere at night, all those clubs and bars that stay open late into the evening and the obwarzanek stands on practically every corner, selling bagels and pretzels at about 12p a time. “We call them the life-savers when you’re at university,” said Tomasz, as we worked our way through the crowds on Grodzka Street.

A curly-haired youth with a goatee, he has a summer job as a tour guide, driving a little electric golf cart through the old town on a route that took in the royal road to Wawel Castle then on to the old Jewish quarter.

I was interested in how much young Krakowians knew of the history of their former Jewish neighbours. “For most young people, Kazimierz is just a place with a nice atmosphere at night and good cheap bars,” Tomasz said. When he began working as a guide however, he had to brush up on the old synagogues, the cemeteries and the 70,000 Jews who were rounded up by the Nazis and shipped out to ghettoes and thence mostly to oblivion.

Since the success of Schindler’s List, Jewish-American money has poured into the area to resurrect its old buildings and institutions and it’s a rare evening when you don’t find a tour group or three following the Schindler route from Kazimierz to Auschwitz.

I probably should have gone to Auschwitz too — you feel guilty if you don’t — but went down the salt mines instead. If you stay at the Radisson SAS hotel on the edge of the Planty, the green sward that lassoes the old town, you can work up a thirst by licking the salt panels on the walls of the bar, part of 400 art installations in the hotel.

For a taste of the real thing, however, you must visit the Wieliczka mines, one of many places frequently nominated for the eighth wonder of the world spot.

Miners have been working there for 900 years and I was told it would take four months to cover the entire network of tunnels. Only the tip of this salty iceberg is available to tourists, who descend 800 steps and along two miles of corridors on a 2Å-hour tour, visiting caves, underground lakes, salt-carved tableaux and oddly, a red feather-plumed miners’ brass band that plays jolly Polish tunes along the way.

Most startling, however, is St Kinga’s chapel, 450ft below ground level, its salt floor polished to marble by thousands of shuffling feet, the salt crystal chandeliers throwing light on salt statues, pulpits and an astonishing Last Supper fresco.

As the tour parties pushed forward for a better look, guides sold photo tickets for about £1.80 to those who had inadvertently forgotten to mention they were going to film the place when they paid their entrance fee. Most people paid up willingly. They seemed more compliant here than at St Mary’s church. When it comes to showing respect for their surroundings, perhaps that’s all some tourists need: a spell in the salt mines.

Details: Czech Airlines (www.czechairlines.co.uk) flies from Edinburgh to Krakow via Prague from £108 return, including taxes, with a new service from Glasgow starting in October. The modern Radisson SAS hotel (www.radisson.com) is handy for all the sights and has great views of Wawel castle. A twin room with breakfast costs from £80 a night (stay four nights get a fifth free).