When people talk about visiting Krakow, they mostly talk about the Old Town’s beautiful architecture and how lucky we are that it survived the war. They also talk about how moving it was to visit Auschwitz but most likely how drunk they got every night and how cheap it was, although, I think there is something else in Krakow that most people miss, and that’s all of Krakow’s’ thrift and second-hand stores.
Everyone knows that thrift stores, vintage stores, second-hand shops, or whatever you want to call them are amazing and full of hidden gems. So what makes the ones in Krakow so great? Well Krakow has the most bars and clubs per square meter than probably any other city in Europe, and at all of these venues droves of tourists visit them week in, and week out, they get shit-faced drunk and half of the time they leave their jumpers, jackets t-shirts and sometimes pants behind at a bar or club. Why does this matter to you? Well, most of those tourists have an early flight the next day, so they can’t pick up their lost items or forget and don’t care. Now as lovely as the Polish people are, they are not going to follow up on every lost item, so all this stuff gets given to the thrift store to be sold very cheaply.
If your reading this then you most likely don’t live in Poland, which also means you have the benefit of the exchange rate, as the polish zloty isn’t very strong, the bargains are multiplied by 5 when you shop here.
If you put “Sklep z używaną odzieżą” into google maps, this will give you most of the vintage shops in Krakow but if you don’t have time to go around to 30 different thrift stores then check out The Flaming Vintage Shop and Flyin’ Vintage as they go around and do the hard work for you and scoop up all the best items and still sell them at great price. Check out our Unique Guide to Krakow for some more things to do.
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