Routes
Day-by-day travel routes through Europe’s second cities, each with an honest budget and the best months to go.
Wrocław → Kraków
Wrocław to Kraków by train: five days across southern Poland
Fly into one city and out of the other. Two days on the Oder, a three-hour train, three days in Kraków — the easiest way to see two very different Polish cities without backtracking.
- Duration
- 5–6 days
- Budget
- €320–460 per person
- Best season
- Apr–Oct
- history
- architecture
- food
- trains
Wrocław
A Wrocław weekend by the river: islands, bridges and the lamplighter
Two days in Poland's most easy-going big city, built around the Oder islands, a twentieth-century concrete landmark and a man who still lights gas lamps by hand every evening.
- Duration
- 2–3 days
- Budget
- €120–190 per person
- Best season
- Apr–Oct
- architecture
- history
- walking
- food
Porto
Porto and the Douro Valley in four days, with the train upriver
Three days in Porto's hills and riverfronts, and one day on the Douro line — the railway that follows the river into the terraced vineyards where port wine is made.
- Duration
- 4–5 days
- Budget
- €300–450 per person
- Best season
- Apr–Oct
- food
- wine
- trains
- architecture
Kraków
Kraków in three slow days: Kazimierz, Podgórze and Nowa Huta
Skip the second lap of the Main Square. Spend the days south and east of it — the Jewish quarter, the old industrial bank of the Vistula and the Communist model town at the end of the tram line.
- Duration
- 3–4 days
- Budget
- €190–280 per person
- Best season
- Apr–Oct
- history
- food
- architecture
- walking
Gdańsk
Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia: three days along the Tricity
Three cities joined by one commuter train: Hanseatic Gdańsk and the shipyard where Solidarity began, the seaside resort of Sopot, and modernist Gdynia.
- Duration
- 3–4 days
- Budget
- €200–300 per person
- Best season
- May–Sep
- history
- seaside
- architecture
- trains