Krakow, Poland: April 2016 Datasheet
12-10-2018, 08:27 PM
I have been living here for around a year now (save for a two month break in Ukraine), so I will hopefully do a bit more extensive update later. For now, here's what I can contribute.
First things first: as said before, going out early is so so so important it can't be overstated. After 2 am, I would not even bother going out.
- Teatro Cubano is actually a decent pre-drink place, and it is open during all nights of the week. Go in at 7 pm, get drunk on 10 pln cuba libre, and bounce the latest around midnight. After midnight, it becomes a vile tourist cesspool. Also during the week, where it is the one decent place to go out during weekdays.... which is sad, and sorta summarizes Krakow currently.
- I didn't see Dolnych Mlynow mentioned here, but it is a former cigarette factory turned bar area with some decent venues to check out. Scena54 is a bit more upscale and great for milf-hunting, Last Riko draws the young professional crowd, and Zetepete has some decent niche music events going on (Balkan music, Rock concerts, weird electronic stuff), and some nice pubs for beer to just meet a mate before going out. At the very least a tolerable mix of tourists and locals.
- Similarly, Kazimierz has some places might worth a visit. Taawa, Opium, and le Scandale are some more upscale places, mostly visited by the 25+ crowd. Alchemia, Hevre, and Eszeweria are good for a date, while Singer is an old-favorite for a last beer.
- Towards the west, at the AGH campus, are the student dorms and consequently also some clubs. When I lived there (not at the campus but close), it seemed pretty chill in the spring, with hundreds of students drinking and barbecuing there. Since the campus security is it's own police force, it's one of the few places where there is a lot of public drinking. Where this once was at the riverbanks, the police now patrols and will fine people for drinking.
- As for the city center, Alternatiwy and Local are good places to meet the Ukrainian diaspora of students, although many of them don't go out that often due to finances/time constraints. Most Ukrainian students do a schedule of studies where once every two weekends they have class, and during the week they work a 400-600 euro menial job. For meeting Polish students, I'd recommend Afera and Spolem as your best bets.
- The high end clubs, Shine, Coco, and Frantic, are absolute thrash in my opinion, although I heard once a month Shine has a Ukrainian night which might be interesting.
At any rate, after a year, it is time to move on. Krakow is OK at best and you can find something here and there, and I work here and all, but my company has offices around Poland and there are a lot of better alternatives in Poland. Krakow nowadays reminds me of Amsterdam or Prague, and not in the good way.
Anyhow, if this is useful to you guys let me know, I can do a full datasheet later on. Before I lived in Bratislava and Bucharest, so I'll drop my two cents in those threads as well as far as the info remains current.
As a final ps, to pk9090, all the Spanish/Italian guy seem to do quite well; Anglosphere guys have the stag party stigma to contend with, especially the British/Irish.