Where to stay in Krakow: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Rynek Główny, the Main Square, is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe, and it is a magnificent stage: the long Renaissance Cloth Hall down the middle, the mismatched towers of St Mary's Basilica at one corner, café terraces all round and horse-drawn carriages clattering past. The lanes running off it are full of cellar bars, churches and museums.

This is where to stay for a first visit, and the hotels are superb. One occupies a palace on the corner of the square, with painted ceilings, beams and Gothic columns; another is the city's oldest hotel, in a Renaissance palace; a grand hotel founded in 1887 is barely 100 metres away. For space, there are apartments in a 16th-century townhouse overlooking the square. Expect noise on summer nights.

The Royal Road, the ancient coronation route, runs south from the Main Square to Wawel Hill, where the castle and cathedral of the Polish kings stand above the Vistula. Below the walls, the Dragon's Den cave recalls the city's favourite legend. The streets at this end of the Old Town, above all cobbled Kanonicza, are quieter and lovelier than those around the square.

It is the romantic choice. Hotels include an elegant five-star 150 metres from Wawel, luxury apartments on Kanonicza a four-minute walk from the castle, a boutique hotel with views of the castle and monastery gardens, and serviced apartments with castle views in a 500-year-old building. The Main Square is about ten minutes' walk north, Kazimierz a few minutes south.

Floriańska Street is the Old Town's grand entrance, running from the medieval Florian Gate and the round, turreted Barbican straight to the Main Square. Just north, the Old Kleparz market is piled with fruit, flowers and vegetables, and the main train station and its shopping centre are a short walk away.

It is a practical, lively base. Choose a design hotel in a 19th-century building next to the Florian Gate, opposite the market, a five-star with a spa and indoor pool a short walk from Floriańska Street, or a romantic grand hotel from 1912 with the station a quick walk away.

Kazimierz was for centuries the home of Krakow's Jewish community, and its synagogues, cemeteries and museums tell that story movingly. Today its cobbled streets and peeling courtyards are also the city's most atmospheric place to eat and drink, from candlelit bars to the zapiekanka hatches of Plac Nowy, busy until the small hours.

Across the river, Podgórze holds the wartime ghetto and Oskar Schindler's factory, now a superb museum. Hotels around here have plenty of personality: a hotel 50 metres from the Old Synagogue, a design hotel on the cobbled streets, a stylish hotel by the Vistula, and modern apartments overlooking Ghetto Heroes Square, a five-minute walk from the Schindler museum.

West and south of the Old Town, the Vistula curves around Wawel with grassy boulevards on both banks, perfect for walks, bike rides and summer evenings. A little further west, Błonia is a vast open meadow next to the leafy Jordan Park, part of what locals call the city's green lungs.

Families get more space here. Hotels include a four-star on Kossak Square by the river boulevards, 700 metres from the Main Square, a big hotel with a pool, a children's corner and rooms overlooking the Vistula bend, and a modern hotel by Błonia, a short tram ride from the centre.