The Old Town is the postcard - and the postcard is the problem. Every visitor sees the same two streets between Floriańska and the Cloth Hall, and leaves thinking they have seen Krakow. They have seen the trailer. The rest of the film starts about ten minutes’ walk in any direction.

The three districts past the Rynek

Kazimierz is the obvious next stop and it deserves the obvious billing - just not at noon on Saturday. Go at seven in the morning. The market on Plac Nowy is setting up. The bagels they sell from the round building have nothing to do with what Americans call a bagel and everything to do with what a Krakowian eats on the way to the tram.

Podgórze, across the river, was a separate city until 1915. It still feels like one. The hill at Krzemionki gives you a view of the whole city that nobody photographs because it requires fifteen minutes of walking uphill from a tram stop.

Nowa Huta is where we send anyone who actually wants to understand Poland. It was built in the 1950s as a model socialist city next to a steelworks. It is now one of the most interesting urban experiments in central Europe, and most travelers never see it because they assume any tram ride longer than twelve minutes is a mistake.

If you only have one afternoon

Take the 4 tram from the train station to Plac Centralny. Walk one block east. Eat at Stołówka Centralna - a milk bar that has been there since 1958. Then walk south through the Aleja Róż park to the steelworks gate. The whole loop takes ninety minutes and costs less than two beers in the Rynek.