Poland fits in a week. Getting the order right is the trick.
Which Auschwitz tour includes the transfer and which leaves you at the gate. What the salt mine costs with the queue skipped. Whether Zakopane is a day trip or two nights. Reviews of every tour you can book in Poland.
The salt mine, Auschwitz, the Tatras, and a boat on the Vistula.
Four bookings a first Polish week is usually built around. What each costs, how long it takes, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01A hundred metres downWieliczka Salt Mine TourChapels, chandeliers and staircases carved out of rock salt, an hour from Krakow. The one underground day nobody regrets.
02The day you set asideAuschwitz Guided Tour with Optional Hotel PickupAuschwitz-Birkenau with a guide, from Krakow. Book a morning slot and plan nothing after it.
03Into the TatrasZakopane Tour with Chocholow Hot Baths and Cable CarCable car up, then an afternoon in the Chocholow thermal water. The day that gets you out of the cities.
04After dark in KrakowEvening or Night River CruiseAn hour on the Vistula with Wawel lit above the bank. Cheap, easy, and the best photograph of the trip.
Auschwitz, Kazimierz, Schindler’s factory: how Poland shows its twentieth century.
Four kinds of visit, each with a guide who knows what is being looked at. Transfers, entry times and what is included differ more than the prices do.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour with Pickup & Lunch
Auschwitz-BirkenauGuided visits with transfer from Krakow, entry booked for you.
Jewish Krakow and WarsawKazimierz, Podgorze and the ghetto walls, on foot.
Schindler’s FactoryThe occupation museum in Zablocie, with the queue skipped.
The war yearsWarsaw Rising, the Westerplatte peninsula, the bunkers.
All 439 tours of Polish history →
Six Polish bases, and the best day out from each.
A royal capital on a limestone hill, the memorial an hour west of it, a rebuilt Old Town on the Vistula, brick cranes on the Baltic, the Tatra foothills, and a cathedral cut into rock salt.
Krakow: one square, three neighbourhoods, everything within a walk.
Everything in Krakow →
The Old Town is compact enough to cross in twenty minutes, which leaves the time for Kazimierz across the tram lines and Podgorze over the river. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
The Old Town, then Kazimierz
The Rynek, the Cloth Hall and St Mary’s, then over to the seven synagogues and the courtyards of the Jewish quarter. Two districts that read as different cities.
Schindler’s Factory, with entry
The enamel works is now a museum of occupied Krakow, and it sells out days in advance. A guided ticket is the difference between walking through it and understanding it.
An hour on the Vistula
Boats leave from under Wawel and turn below the bend. Take the late sailing, when the castle floodlights come on and the riverbank bars fill up.
What Poland books when it only has one free day.
The whole catalogue →The tours that fill first across the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel Pickup
Travel from Krakow by air-conditioned bus to Auschwitz-Birkenau for a 3.5-hour guided visit. You’ll see the Arbeit Macht Frei gate, barracks, gas chambers, prisoner belongings, and Birkenau’s platforms. Guides may include Nicholas, Nickolas, or Ziggy. Hotel pickup, small groups, and several languages are available.
From · $21
Read our review →
2
Auschwitz Guided Tour with Optional Hotel Pickup
from $69
3
Zakopane: Cable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & Vodka
from $54
4
Wieliczka Salt Mine Tour
from $33
5
Wieliczka Salt Mine Guided Tour with Transport
from $55
6
Evening or Night River Cruise
from $24
7
Zakopane Tour with Chocholow Hot Baths and Cable Car
from $51
8
Oskar Schindler’s Factory Entry Ticket & Guided Tour
from $35
The salt mine, the Tatras and the thermal pools are all day trips from Krakow.
Poland’s best countryside sits within two hours of one city. A mine you walk down into, a mountain range you take a cable car up, and hot water you sit in afterwards while it snows.
Polish prices, sorted: what each kind of day actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Poland stays cheap by western European standards, and a good number of the best days here cost less than dinner.
Old-town walks, museum entries, the river cruises and most of the vodka tastings.
- 1Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel Pickupfrom $21
- 2Wieliczka Salt Mine Tourfrom $33
- 3Evening or Night River Cruisefrom $24
The full days: Auschwitz with transfer, the salt mine and Zakopane with the thermal pools.
Private guides, the two-memorial days and the trips that run door to door.
Gdansk earns the four hours on the train from Warsaw.
Merchant gables rebuilt brick by brick along the Motlawa, the shipyard where the strikes started, amber in every second window, and the Baltic beach at Sopot twenty minutes up the line.
Every Gdansk day out →
Warsaw was rebuilt from photographs, and it wants you to know it.
The Old Town is a post-war reconstruction of a city that was deliberately flattened, and the museums say so plainly. Between them: Chopin recitals most evenings, a communist-era tour in a Fiat, and the best restaurant scene in the country.
- 1Chopin Concert in the Old Townfrom $26
- 2Traditional Galar Cruise on The Vistula Riverfrom $20
- 3Old Town Highlights Walking Tour in Englishfrom $26
Salt, steam and a piano: three things Poland has and nowhere else does.
Old towns and mountain cable cars exist all over central Europe. A cathedral carved out of rock salt, thermal water at the foot of the Tatras, and Chopin played where he learned it do not.
The Wieliczka Salt Chapel
Miners spent four centuries cutting a church out of the rock salt under Wieliczka, chandeliers included, and the crystals were carved into shape by hand. The tourist route runs about three kilometres and ends far below the fields. Take a layer: it holds around fourteen degrees all year, in August as much as in January.
- 1Wieliczka Salt Mine Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 9,393 reviews
- 2Wieliczka Salt Mine Guided Tour with Transport★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 7,429 reviews
- 3Wieliczka Salt Mine Fast-Track Ticket & Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,872 reviews
Podhale and the hot water
Zakopane sits at the mouth of the only alpine range Poland has, and the whole Podhale basin is drilled for geothermal water. The pattern of the day is fixed: cable car or funicular first, then a couple of hours in the thermal pools at Chocholow or Bukowina while the peaks disappear into cloud.
- 1Zakopane: Cable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & Vodka★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 10,720 reviews
- 2Zakopane Tour with Chocholow Hot Baths and Cable Car★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,463 reviews
- 3Zakopane, Thermal Springs, Cable Car, Local Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5,419 reviews
Chopin, played at home
Chopin left Warsaw at twenty and never came back, which has not stopped the country claiming him completely. Recitals run most evenings in both capitals, usually an hour long, often by candlelight in a salon room of forty seats. It is the cheapest good evening you can book in Poland.
- 1Chopin Piano Recital at Chopin Concert Hall★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,330 reviews
- 2Chopin Concert in the Old Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,287 reviews
- 3Warsaw Concert: Chopin – Painted by Candlelights with Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,442 reviews
Four Polish bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on timed entry slots and daily caps set by the sites themselves, and they are full days before the weekend starts.
- 01Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel PickupEntry is by timed slot with a daily cap, and guided visits in English go first. Tours leaving Krakow before nine are the ones that sell out.
- 02Wieliczka Salt Mine TourThe mine admits groups on a fixed rota and the English-language route runs to a timetable. Turning up without a ticket means waiting for a gap.
- 03Oskar Schindler’s Factory Entry Ticket & Guided TourThe factory museum is small, entry is timed, and a queue forms well before it opens. Tickets often go days ahead in summer.
- 04Chopin Piano Recital at Chopin Concert HallRecital rooms seat forty or so. The candlelit evenings in Warsaw and Krakow fill first, and they run on set nights.
Half the Polish year is cold, and the good bookings know it.
From November the light goes by four and the Baltic wind comes across the plain. Poland answers with rooms rather than views: mines, museums, cellar bars, concert salons and thermal water you sit in while it snows on the Tatras.
Pierogi, cellar bars and a flight of cold vodka.
Polish food is built for a cold climate and eats better than its reputation abroad. Market halls and milk bars at lunch, a pierogi class in the afternoon, and an evening that ends with four glasses and a herring chaser.
By city — and the towns worth the train
By kind of day — underground, on foot, on the water or at the table
Krakow, Auschwitz, Wieliczka, Zakopane, Warsaw, Gdansk: the run most people do first.
Reviews added to the Polish catalogue this week.
More of what landed this month →
Legends of Old Town 1 Hour Walking Tour in Wroclaw
Read our review →
Krakow and Wieliczka Salt Mine Tour from Wroclaw – Local guides included
Read our review →
Highlights of Wroclaw Private Tour with one Entrance
Read our review →
Guided Private Tour to Auschwitz Birkenau & Krakow from Wroclaw
Read our review →
Famous Islands of Wroclaw – Cathedral Island and Sand Island Private Tour
Read our review →
Private Candlelight concerts with classical music in Wroclaw
Read our review →
Culinary Microcosm – Food, Drinks, & History of Wroclaw
Read our review →
Wroclaw Private Guided Tour SHORT AND PROFESSIONAL. 2 pcs., 1 – 9 pers.
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Wroclaw different – secrets of the city, 2 hours. 3-9 people
Read our review →