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Shopping
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The city centre's inexorable return to the moneyed heart of central Europe is eloquently expressed in the range of shops in the centre, with several commerce-oriented streets, notably
ulica Florianska
, gradually acquiring the affluent-looking boutiques and other consumerist hallmarks of the average Western European city.
Ulica Szewska
is also a good street for boutiques as well as more traditional Polish clothes shops. Even by Polish standards, though,
opening hours
are a bit eccentric. Most places don't open till 10 or 11am, closing around 7pm (bakeries are usually an exception), so if you're planning shopping tours, check the opening times first. Galerija Centrum, on the corner of ul. sw. Anny and the Rynek, is the biggest of the downtown department stores.
Krakow has plenty of useful bookshops . By far the best is the Empik megastore on Rynek Glowny, where you'll find a selection of international magazines, English-language guidebooks and novels, and a good map section. Sklep Podroznika, ul. Jagiellonska 6, is also good for guidebooks and maps. Places which tend to stock English-language titles include Akademicka, ul. sw. Anny 6, one of the main university bookshops; Hetmanska, Rynek Glowny 17; and Columbus, ul. Grodzka 60. Antykwariat, ul. sw. Tomasza 26, is the place to browse for rare and secondhand volumes. The best places for records and CDs are Empik (see above) and Muzyczna, Rynek Glowny 36. Desa, ul. Grodzka 8, is a general antique shop; while Postery Gallery, ul. Stolarska 8, sells good reproductions of historical poster art. For a taste of a more customary postwar Polish style of shopping, the street traders' market , it's worth making your way into the Kleparz district fifteen minutes' walk north of the Rynek Glowny. Rynek Kleparski, just across ul. Basztowa, offers a mixed jumble of Poles and former Soviet citizens touting an imaginative variety of wares, anything from home-picked fruit and veg to books, bootleg cassettes, Soviet army uniforms, moonshine and dubiously antique bric-a-brac. Heading towards the north along shop-lined ul. Dluga brings you to the larger plac Nowy Kleparz, surrounded by an array of cheap secondhand and cut-price shops.
Finally, if you need a
late-night store
, the following are open 24 hours a day: A & C, ul. Starowislna 1; Delicje, Rynek Kleparski 5; and Oczko, ul. Podwale 6. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Poland,
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