Pope John Paul II’s picture sits in the window of the building where he slept as pope on visits home to Krakow, Poland.

Detroit Free Press / Ellen Creager

KRAKOW, Poland Completely enchanting. Worth every zloty. Gracious and romantic. Exciting. Complex. Historic.

If you stay in Krakow a day, you’ll wish you’d stayed a week. If you stay a week, you will wish you’d stayed two.

What’s the attraction? Krakow is part college town and part delicious fairy tale.

It was from this beautiful region that hundreds of thousands of Poles emigrated to Detroit, Chicago and other American cities around 1900. They fled occupation, oppression, poverty and high taxes, leaving this place to make their fortune in a new land.

But what a treasure the city is now. Go to see it, and you’ll be a rare American doing so. Lacking the cachet of Italy, France or the United Kingdom, Poland got just 331,000 American visitors last year, which is a shame because Poland, which does not yet use the euro, is still one of the most affordable spots in Europe.

My favorite things about Krakow?

For an old city, it feels very young. Since Copernicus was an undergrad here at Jagiellonian University in the 1400s, Krakow has been buzzing with more than 100,000 students.

It is a 1,000-year-old city that has never been bombed. Occupied, yes. Defiled, yes. Scene of sorrows and evils, Nazis and Communists, yes. But its 14th- to 16th-century landmarks — its churches, medieval towers and grand, stunning market square — have survived it all.

And there’s more. Quaintly, a trumpeter plays a song every hour on the hour in the tower of a local church, just to let people know that all is well. The once bereft Jewish section of town, Kazimierz, has sprung back to life. The city has a huge castle. Delightful food. Classical music every night. And a local priest (Karol Wojtyla was his name, you may have heard of him) made good as pope.

But first, a bit of background.

Krakow, the largest city in southern Poland, is nestled between Ukraine to the east, Slovakia to the south and the Czech Republic to the west. It is not far from Vienna and Prague, and it has elements of these, plus touches of Italy, France, Sweden, Lithuania and Russia.

It is often included as a brief stop on quickie tours of Eastern Europe. But Krakow, a city of 800,000 people, deserves more time. I think it is better to just come to Krakow and base yourself here. Most people speak English. You have time to sit on a bench or wander slowly and just absorb the atmosphere.

Sit still, and you will notice the nuns and priests walking the streets in traditional dress. You will see the slightly unbalanced walk of British men in town for stag parties.

It also must be said: The women are beautiful in Krakow. Young and old, they wear beautiful dresses, feminine things, frilly skirts and strappy sandals. No sneakers. No khakis. No chewing gum.

And you will notice the amber jewelry in so many shop windows. It is not a gem, but a smoky resin from the Baltic Sea that is made into necklaces, earrings, magnifying glass handles, little boxes, all very mysterious.

Americans who visit Krakow tend to come in groups, but I am here on my own with a local guide and hotel reserved for me by a good Polish travel agent back in Detroit.

My guide, Barbara Wloch, 35, takes me sightseeing part of each day. She shows me where the good ice cream is (Lody’s on Starowislna). She tells me to bargain in the Cloth Hall main market, where sellers hawk amber jewelry, hand-made boxes, wooden toys, Christmas ornaments, lambskin rugs, chess sets and folk art.

The native Krakovian is trained as a lawyer, musician and translator. When I get gushy, she says that Krakow is not so remarkable, that there is a lot of bureaucracy, and people love to complain here. She said entrepreneurial culture is not growing fast enough — many people can’t get over their dependence fostered by decades of communism. She points out that millions of young people have left Poland for better jobs in places such as England or Ireland. Life is not so great here, she says.

I have a hard time believing her, even though I do believe her. I try to tell her, look around you. Look at this place. This place has something better than money.

But she has seen it all her life, living in the shadow of Wawel Castle, walking these streets with their carriages and their 15th-century architecture and the intellectual atmosphere. Maybe it’s better somewhere else, she muses.

My hotel, Senacki, is on a main street in the old town, which thankfully allows no cars. My room has white lace curtains at the enormous windows. They open up to the cobblestone street below. At night, I hear people strolling past and snatches of music. By day, I see three weddings at the church across the street. Below is a lady with a cart, selling big flat bagels and pretzels for 1.20 zlotys each — about 57 cents.

Three nights in a row, I go to a chamber music concert, each at a different hall nearby — Vivaldi, Chopin, Mozart.

Several times a day, I stop and listen for the trumpet and am reassured.

I eat pierogi. Sit at sidewalk cafes. Wander bookstores. Visit lots of churches, including a must-see stop at St. Francis Basilica, with its Art Nouveau stained glass window depicting God, done by local artist Stanislaw Wyspianski in about 1900.

History is piled upon history here. Walk to the Kazimierz district, and you can see the Pilsudski Bridge, where Polish Jews were forced by the Nazis to cross to a ghetto in 1941. (The movie Schindler’s List was filmed in Krakow in 1994, so anyone who has seen that movie will recognize spots in here, even the still-standing factory of Oskar Schindler.)

High on a hill above downtown is the kindly looking Wawel Castle, which was home to centuries of Polish kings and queens and is now a museum full of ancient huge tapestries, furniture, royal apartments, a chapel and a famous bell tower.

An hour west is Auschwitz, a must-see.

About a half-hour south is the Wieliczka salt mine, which has been active for 700 years and popular with tourists since the 1800s. Visitors climb down 350 stairs and visit about 20 “rooms” — really caverns — including a cathedral in which the floors, walls, chandeliers and even a relief of The Last Supper were created out of salt by artistic miners.

But in Krakow, you really don’t need to rush around.

Stroll. Take a million pictures. Linger at a café. Absorb. Enjoy.If you go . . .

MONEY: Poland uses the zloty; about 2 zlotys equal $1. Poland is still relatively inexpensive for American visitors in comparison to countries that use the euro. ATMs widely available.

PASSPORT: Needed for visit to Poland, but no visa required.

LODGING: Good range of hotels. High end: Copernicus Hotel ( www.hotelcopernicus.com), Hotel Stary ( www.stary.hotel.com.pl) or Radisson SAS ( www.krakow.radissonsas.com). Nice: Hotel Senacki ( www.senacki.krakow.pl). Cheap: Flamingo Hostel ( www.flamingo-hostel.com). The Flamingo was just named the world’s best hostel by Hostel World.

GETTING AROUND: No car needed, although roads are good. You can walk to most sites within Krakow. You can hire a taxi for short or long trips. Horse-drawn carriages are plentiful in the old town. Krakow is also served by trains and buses to get you to other areas of Poland.

DAY TRIPS: Auschwitz is about one hour west of Krakow. The mountain town of Zakopane is about two hours south. The Wieliczka Salt Mine is about 20 minutes southeast of town.

CITY HIGHLIGHTS: St. Mary’s Church, Cloth Hall, Market Square, nightly chamber music concerts. Art Nouveau stained glass in St. Francis Basilica, Jagiellonian University, dining al fresco, people watching.

FOR MORE: Poland National Tourist Office, www.polandtour.org.