Wrocław surprised me, even though I knew almost nothing about it before I went. I’d go hunting for the city’s dwarfs, walk around Cathedral Island and the main square, and see Wrocław’s old neon signs. If you want to see the city away from the usual routes, a tour with a local guide is well worth it.
- Where I stayed
- Hotel PURO in the centre, about a 10-minute walk from the main square; quiet, clean rooms
- Wrocław’s dwarfs
- More than a thousand around the city; the last original one is at Mariana Smoluchowskiego 22
- Wrocław’s neon signs
- In a courtyard behind the New Horizons cinema, best seen after dark
- Four Denominations District
- A Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant church plus a synagogue within 400 metres; breakfast at Charlotte
- My tip
- An unconventional tour with the guide Mateusz Kornacki, away from the usual routes
Contents4 chaptersHideShow
- 01Milan Bez Mapy’s guide
- 02Things to do in Wrocław: where to go and which sights not to miss
- The sights worth seeing
- A short history of Wrocław: how the city came to be and why the locals have no accent
- 03What to see in Wrocław: my tips on where to go
- The Four Denominations District and the last surviving synagogue
- Wrocław’s neon signs
- Wrocław’s dwarfs
- The Rynek, Wrocław’s main square
- Cathedral Island (Ostrów Tumski)
- 04The Bermuda Triangle in Wrocław
What is there to see in Wrocław? I’ll admit that before I came, I had no idea what to see there. I couldn’t even picture what a city with such a strange name might be like. A city on the River Oder in western Poland, known for its market square lined with elegant town houses and a modern fountain. That was Wrocław for me. Until then.
Visiting Wrocław: Milan Bez Mapy’s guide
What is Wrocław? It’s Poland’s third-largest city and the largest city in western Poland. It has more than a thousand years of history and grew up where trade routes crossed. It became an important trading centre thanks to its location close to Germany and the Czech Republic. I could go on for quite a while.
After a few days of wandering the city’s narrow streets, I put together this guide to what to see in Wrocław, with a few restaurant tips and advice on where to stay.
Where to stay in Wrocław
I stayed at Hotel PURO. I liked its location right in the city centre, about a 10-minute walk from the main square. The rooms were pleasant, clean, quiet and comfortable, and the bathroom was spacious.
Things to do in Wrocław: where to go and which sights not to miss
These are my tips on what to see in Wrocław:
- The White Stork Synagogue, which survived the war
- The Four Denominations District
- Wrocław’s neon signs
- The city’s dwarfs and how they came about
- The main market
- The Rynek, the central town square
- Cathedral Island
- The Bermuda Triangle
- Wrocław Zoo
Visiting Wrocław: the sights worth seeing
At first glance, Wrocław may remind you of Kraków. Why? It has almost the same fortifications running around the whole historic centre. Today they are a pleasant city park that rings the Old Town like a green belt. Unlike Kraków, though, Wrocław has something extra: the moat around the historic centre is still full of water, which gives the park a lovely atmosphere.
People used to come to Wrocław to trade, because it stood at a crossroads of trade routes between eastern and western Europe.
Tip from Milan I’ve also written about what to see in Kraków.
Over the centuries the city belonged to Poland, then to Bohemia, the Habsburgs and Germany. It has been Polish again only since the end of the Second World War. That’s why the city shows off architecture from different periods, cultures and regimes, and believe me, you notice it on every corner.
Here are some tours of Wrocław and trips out of the city:
A short history of Wrocław: how the city came to be and why the locals have no accent
TIP: Not in the mood for a history lesson? Here are the key points, the ones I found most important and most interesting:
- Until 1945 Wrocław was the German city of Breslau, and for a long time the war passed it by
- At the end of the war the Germans turned it into a fortress, the Soviets besieged it for almost three months and the city ended up in ruins
- After the war the victorious powers shifted Poland’s borders westwards: Poland gained Wrocław but lost its eastern territories, including Lviv and Vilnius
- The German residents were expelled and Poles from all over the country resettled the city, which is why there is no local accent
How today’s Wrocław came about is a fascinating story. Until 1945 it was the German city of Breslau, and for a long time the war passed it by. In early 1945, however, the Nazis declared it a fortress, the so-called Festung Breslau, which was meant to stop the Soviet army. The Soviets besieged the city from February until 6 May 1945, and it surrendered only after Berlin had fallen. The fighting, the bombing and the houses demolished for the defence of the fortress left most of the city in ruins.
After the war, the new borders were decided at Yalta and Potsdam. The Soviet Union kept eastern Poland, which it had occupied in 1939, and Poland received German territory in the west as compensation. And so, after the war, Wrocław became Polish, although nobody had asked the Poles. Poland lost cities such as Lviv, now in Ukraine, and Vilnius, now in Lithuania. The German residents were expelled, and Poles from all over the country came to Wrocław, many of them from Lviv. And all this happened only about 80 years ago. People looked for somewhere to live in the abandoned German houses that had survived the war.
‘Stalin moved our territory because he wanted more land for the Soviet Union. He also wanted to bring the Slavic minorities who lived there, people like Ukrainians or Belarusians, into the Soviet Union. Of course there was a small oil field there too, but that wasn’t the main reason he took our territory. The oil was just one of the few bonuses he could expect there.’ That’s how my guide Mateusz explained it to me.
The new arrivals brought their cows, their livestock, everything. They often shared flats with Germans who were waiting to be moved out while the Poles moved in. It was a strange situation, but people respected each other and understood what the others were going through. As a result, Wrocław is full of people from all over Poland and practically nobody is actually from here. There’s no such thing as a Wrocław accent. Look out for the German inscriptions on the buildings: the city is full of them, and they show just how recent this history is. Many buildings also have white arrows painted on them, pointing down. They showed the way to the nearest bunker.
What to see in Wrocław: my tips on where to go
The Four Denominations District and the last surviving synagogue
Also known as the District of Mutual Respect, the Four Denominations District (Dzielnica Czterech Wyznań) is the cleanest, most colourful and most charming part of Wrocław. Within just 400 metres there are four beautiful places of worship: a Catholic church, an Orthodox church, a Protestant church and a synagogue. Each has its own fascinating story.
This central district stands for what Wrocław is today: a city of respect and tolerance among its residents. The war taught them that. I’d stop at Charlotte, a café with perfect breakfasts and coffee.
Wrocław’s neon signs
Wrocław’s neon gallery is a sort of Times Square of Europe, if you squint. It’s a collection of neon signs from all over the city, usually from businesses that went bust. It’s very close to the city centre, on the other side of the square, in a courtyard behind the New Horizons cinema. After dark you can see all the old neons, taken down from different places in Wrocław. For years they hung on other buildings, and today they remind locals what the city used to look like.
Wrocław’s dwarfs
Walk around the city with your eyes open and you’re bound to spot plenty of little dwarfs in the streets. There are more than a thousand of them today, and they have a bitter story behind them. You’ll find the first one a short walk from the main square. He stands on a middle finger with his hands behind his back, as if he’d done nothing wrong.
The dwarf was a political symbol against the communist regime, whose propaganda covered up Poland’s dire economic situation. Protests broke out in the big cities, and Wrocław was never going to be left out. Quite the opposite: it was the ideal place for them, with big factories and thousands of students.
A student movement, the Orange Alternative, began mocking the government with humour. They wanted to show how ridiculous reality was. They painted dwarfs on walls and dressed up as them. The police arrested them, of course, but then the papers carried reports like this: ‘Police arrest three dwarfs in the streets of Wrocław.’ That was exactly what the students wanted: news as absurd as the communist regime itself. TIP: The last surviving original dwarf, one that was never painted over, is by the entrance to the house at Mariana Smoluchowskiego 22.
The Rynek, Wrocław’s main square
The Rynek is one of the largest historic squares in Poland. The war destroyed it, and it was rebuilt afterwards, though not exactly as it had been.
Tip from Milan I’d stop at Przedwojenna, a vodka bar open 24/7, right opposite the church. Vodka bars have a curious history in Poland. After the war, Poles didn’t go out: they had no money, so they visited each other and cooked at home. Restaurants hardly existed and you couldn’t get beer, so people drank vodka. The bars worked differently, too. The only food was small snacks, usually fatty meat, which soaks up the alcohol.
So people drank more, and the whole point was to spend as little time in the bar as possible. You knocked back three or four quick vodkas standing up, chased them with galareta (a jelly made from chicken bones, typical of Poland) and went home. Nobody lingered. In the 1990s capitalism arrived, and the Poles forgot about vodka and went back to beer. Today vodka bars have reopened so that the tradition doesn’t disappear.
Cathedral Island (Ostrów Tumski)
Cathedral Island is where Wrocław began. The whole island is Christian and everything on it belongs to the Church. Nothing much happens here in the evening, so it’s a good place for a date if you want some privacy.
The Bermuda Triangle in Wrocław
The ‘Bermuda Triangle’ is the nickname of a district in the east of the city that used to have a very bad reputation. It got the name from its triangular shape. After the Second World War, many people from the east, specifically from the area around Lviv, were housed in this suburb along the Oława river. ‘Expelled’ would be closer to the truth, but that word didn’t exist in communist Poland. A poor community that nobody wanted to look at.
Children had nowhere to play and teenagers had nowhere to go. Violence on the streets was common, and this part of the city was genuinely dangerous. Today film crews come here to shoot war and historical films, thanks to its old, ornate buildings. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have filmed here too. I’d also make time for Wrocław Zoo, which has a beautiful Africarium. I recommend booking your tickets in advance.
If you make it to Wrocław, tell me in the comments how you liked it. The city pleasantly surprised me. For a place I’d heard practically nothing about in my 30 years, it turned out to be full of stories and good food. Thank you to the best guide in the world, Mateusz Kornacki of What’s Up Wroclaw. If you’d like an unconventional tour of the city too, away from the usual tourist spots, he’s the one to book.
You might also like my article Poland in autumn: three tips on what to see and where to go.
A Slovak travel blogger who has been getting Slovaks out of their office chairs since 2013. Author of the book Influencer and founder of the Bez Mapy blog.
