The greatest empire in Renaissance Europe was born in Lublin in Lesser Poland in 1569. The Union of Lublin created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Lublin, on the old road from Kraków to Vilnius, was the place where the document was signed. Lublin’s Old Town is guarded by two gates and has a Renaissance castle in …
In West Pomerania, the city of Szczecin is a major seaport that first grew rich from trade on the Baltic in the Middle Ages. Known as Stettin in German, it’s a city that has passed between opposing powers for hundreds of years. The Dukes of Pomerania were replaced by the Swedes, followed by the Prussian …
On Gdańsk Bay, Gdynia is a port city that sprouted in the interwar years of the 20th century. With white sandy beaches and coastal forest it quickly became a holiday resort, but was also Poland’s embarkation point for emigrants to America. A new museum on this delicate topic and the Polish diaspora opened in 2015, …
Poland’s largest port flourished during Medieval times as a merchant city trading Baltic amber. In the 20th century events took place in Gdańsk that would affect the course of world history. On 1 September 1939 the Wehrmacht launched their Invasion of Poland at the Westerplatte peninsula north of the city. And just over four decades …
A city with its own identity, dialect and customs, Poznań in the Greater Poland region is where Catholicism first gained a foothold on Polish soil. Poland’s first diocese was founded here on the Cathedral island in the 10th century by the nation’s first king. This river island sits on the shoulder of the Renaissance Old …
The university city of Wrocław is the capital of Lower Silesia and often ranks among the most liveable places in Europe. Wrocław ‘s past is unbelievably complex, and over the last 1,000 years it has come under the control of eight different kingdoms and empires. Under the Habsburg Monarchy in the Early Modern Age Wrocław …
Poland’s third largest city was built on the back of the textiles industry in the 19th-century. The cityscape is still shaped by this period: Gargantuan brick spinning mills have been turned into trendy cultural centres, malls and open monuments, while the entrepreneurs who made their fortunes from the factories built lavish villas that are now …
UNESCO World Heritage city, Kraków was the throne of the Polish monarchs for half a millennium up to the 17th century. After being ransacked by the Mongols in the 13th century the Old Town was built anew, and the layout has barely changed since then. Kraków was at the height of its powers in the …
It is not hyperbole to say that Warsaw is a city that has risen from the rubble. In 1945 85% of the city was irretrievably destroyed. But you could now walk the streets of the Old Town without comprehending the carnage that took place during the German invasion of 1939, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of …
A manufacturing city 100 kilometres south of Warsaw in the Masovian Voivodeship, Radom has many of the region’s big institutions and government buildings. In Medieval times the city gained a lot of prestige, as kings like Władysław II Jagiełło would stay here on their way from Kraków to Vilnius and host foreign envoys in the …