Kraków’s precise origins are unclear, but the city first rose to prominence at the turn of the first millennium as a thriving market town. The enormous size of the Rynek attests to Kraków’s early importance, even if the city’s early history is more than a little bit cloudy.

Kraków suffered the usual ups and downs related to religious strife, wars, natural disasters, plagues, and the occasional raid from Mongol hordes coming from the East. Kraków’s charms are multidimensional. In addition to the beautifully restored Old Town, complete with its fairytale castle, there’s the former Jewish quarter of Kazimierz. If you’ve seen Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning movie Schindler’s List, you’ll recognize some of the film locations as you walk around Kazimierz. For anyone unfamiliar with the film, Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist who operated an enamel factory across the river from Kazimierz during World War II. By employing Jews from the nearby ghetto, he managed to spare the lives of around 1,100 people who otherwise would have gone to the death camps at Auschwitz. After years of neglect, Schindler’s factory reopened in 2010, though this time around, as a museum of the city’s history during the Second World War.