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Krakow has 300 cafes, bars and restaurants, and its many coffeehouses "are one of its biggest pluses," Peter Typa, the Globtroter's desk clerk, told me when I asked him for a few recommendations. "People come from Warsaw to drink coffee. Everyone has their favorite."

Perhaps the best time to come here is winter, I thought as I walked across Rynek Glowny, the name for Krakow's Old Town main square, to the Kawiarnia Noworolski, a historic coffeehouse on a patch of prime 13th-century real estate now more popular with tourists than Bohemian types.

"Young Krakowians wouldn't be caught dead here," according to a review in my "In Your Pocket" guidebook.

I paid $3, way too much by Polish standards, to slip into one of the red velvet chairs and sip a cinnamon-laced mokka. The bow-tied waiters may not be the hippest, but the little marble window tables are ideal for people-watching. My favorite characters were the man in a track suit singing the "Ave Maria" outside St. Mary's Church and the grim-faced pretzel sellers bundled up in white coats behind their push carts.