Things to see in Cracow

Schindler’s Factory opened in 2010 and has been wowing visitors ever since. The state-of-the-art museum tells the story of Oskar Schindler (whose offices once stood on the site) and his employees during the Nazi occupation of WWII. It tells the story of life under the Nazis, of the fate of the Jews and the underground resistance to the occupation. Already one of the top attractions in Cracow, it’s well worth a visit.

While this modern structure may appear to be at odds with Cracow's many historic buildings, Manggha has one of the continent's finest collections of ancient Japanese art, ceramics, weapons, fabrics, scrolls and woodcuts. It features some 7,000 pieces collected by Feliks Jasienski (1861-1929), who first discovered Japanese art while studying in Paris in the 1880s. He adopted the pseudonym Manggha from a transliteration of the Japanese manga, the title of Hokusu's famous series of sketches, and donated his collection to the National Museum in Cracow in 1920.

A branch of the Jagiellonian University Medical School, this fascinating museum is housed in a beautiful townhouse and is crammed with old laboratory equipment, rare pharmaceutical instruments, heaps of glassware, stoneware, mortars, jars, barrels, medical books and documents. There are recreated pharmacies dating back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the garret is crammed with elixirs and panaceas, including vile vials or dried mummy powder.

Celebrating Poland’s rich, artistic heritage, the Cracow National Museum showcases a vast collection of work from the country’s leading artists including Kantor and Witkacy. Exhibitions are spread between a number of buildings, and the museum also houses a fine collection of Polish weapons.

Although all traces of communist rule have been erased from Cracow's Old Town, those with an interest in Socialist architecture can travel out of town to the model Soviet suburb of New Town.

This ‘New Steelworks', with its wide boulevards, geometrically ordered streets and imposing buildings, extends from the plac Centralny (Central Square). Yet, while it characterises the Soviet regime’s Orwellian society, it also displays the Poles' resistance to certain aspects of communism – as can be witnessed by the Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland, designed by Wojciech Peitrzyk and built between 1967 and 1977. It is known as Arka Pana (Lord's Ark) due to its shape.

The Church of St Bartholomew, located at ulica Klasztorna, just in front of the 18th-century Cistercian Abbey, dates from 1466 and is Poland's only surviving example of a three-nave wooden church. It contains beautiful 14th-century frescos and a sculpture of Jesus. Also worth a visit is the art gallery in the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre, located at aleja Jana Pawla II.

The Malopolska Tourist Information Centre (tel: 12 421 7706; www.mcit.pl) in the Old Town organises tours. For more information about Nowa Huta, visit the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre on aleja Jana Pawla II 232 (tel: 12 644 0266; www.nh.pl).

One of the newest attractions in Cracow, the high-tech Rynek Underground museum opened with much razzmatazz in 2010 following five years of archaeological digging. Situated below the Main Market Square, the museum takes visitors on an interactive journey through Cracow’s history; displaying artefacts from the first human settlers along with reconstructed videos depicting life in the Middle Ages. For all its touch-screen technology and films, critics question whether it was worth the money and disruption.

Perched atop Wawel Hill, Cracow’s Royal Castle was the seat of Poland's kings from the early 11th to the late 16th centuries. The majority of the castle is Renaissance in style (1504-35), although Romanesque and Gothic elements remain. Today, it is a museum complex, and among the treasures in the historic interior of the Royal Chambers (or State Rooms) is a collection of 16th-century Flemish tapestries, paintings and period furniture. Other separate sections of the castle open to the public include the Royal Private Apartments and the Crown Treasury and Armoury.

The Oriental Art Exhibition has an excellent collection of Near and Far Eastern art, including important 17th-century Turkish items. Also worth a look is The Lost Wawel exhibit, which showcases the excavated remains of Wawel's original buildings, including the foundations of the oldest known church in Poland, the early 11th-century Rotunda of SS Felix and Adauctus. More whimsical is the Dragon's Den, a karst cave reached by a spiral staircase, where the legendary Prince Krakus (thus Krakow or Cracow) supposedly killed the Wawel dragon. There’s a daily limit for tickets so arrive early.