The present study addresses a series of techniques for speeding up numerical calculations in Python programs. The techniques are evaluated in a benchmark problem involving finite difference solution of a wave equation. Our aim is to find the optimal mix of user-friendly, high-level, and safe programming in Python with more detailed and more error-prone low-level programming in compiled languages. In particular, we present and evaluate Cython, which is a new software tool that combines high- and low-level programming in an attractive way with promising performance. Cython is compared to more well-known tools such as F2PY, Weave, and Instant. With the mentioned tools, Python has a significant potential as programming platform in computational mechanics.