Ninety seconds on Nowa Huta
There is a whole planned town inside Kraków here: you walk from Plac Centralny along broad avenues lined with arcades, through Poland's flagship example of socialist-realist planning, to the boat-shaped Ark of the Lord church.
Plac Centralny is a pentagon on the edge of the Vistula escarpment, ringed by tall arcaded blocks. Five broad avenues fan out from it and divide the district into four residential sectors. The plan also called for a theatre at the escarpment edge and an obelisk in the middle of the square, and neither was built.
The wide streets and dense trees belonged to a civil-defence plan, and about 250 underground shelters lie beneath the blocks, schools and clinics. You can go down into one of them, under a school on Osiedle Szkolne, where the Museum of Nowa Huta runs a branch.
Aleja Róż, the Avenue of Roses, leads off the square, and a section of it has been restored to its 1950s look.
Arka Pana, the Ark of the Lord, takes its name from its ship-like outline, and an 8-metre crucifix by Bronisław Chromy dominates the interior. Residents raised a cross on the site in the 1950s and saw it destroyed by excavators, and the modernist church later built there became a symbol of resistance to communist rule.
There are three stops on the walk: the square, the church and the shelter, in that order. Start under the arcades of Plac Centralny, where the tram drops you, then turn down Aleja Róż.
From there, head to Arka Pana on Obrońców Krzyża street; the Teatr Ludowy tram stop is nearest if you would rather ride. The church has no guide of its own, so you walk in on your own during weekday visiting hours.
Finish underground at the shelter branch of the Museum of Nowa Huta, at Osiedle Szkolne 37. Reach its ticket desk through the school's main entrance. Last entry is half an hour before closing.
The Museum of Nowa Huta runs guided walks of the district, among them a walk through its shelter heritage. A general guided walk of the square, the avenue and the church takes about two and a half hours at an easy pace.
Come on a Wednesday if you can, and book ahead: shelter tickets sell online or at the desk while places last.
Avoid Friday mornings for the church, which is when it is cleaned. Some parts of the building can also be shut for repairs, so walk round the outside if the nave is closed off.
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