Travel and Tourism in Poland

Wroc?aw: The City of Gnomes and Bridges

Wroc?aw is the most surprising of Poland's major cities. It was known for most of its history as Breslau — a German city at the heart of the Silesian region that belonged successively to the Habsburg Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Its architecture, its street plan, its churches, and its university all reflect this Central European German heritage. After the Second World War, the German population was expelled, and Polish settlers — many of them from the former Polish eastern territories now annexed by the Soviet Union — moved in to inhabit a city that was not their own. Wroc?aw was thus a city of strangers, a place where a new identity had to be built atop the ruins and remnants of another.

That rebuilding has been an extraordinary success. Modern Wroc?aw is one of the most vibrant, attractive, and culturally rich cities in Poland. Its Market Square — Rynek — is one of the largest medieval market squares in Europe after Kraków's, surrounded by beautifully restored Gothic and Renaissance merchant houses in the full palette of Central European colors. The Town Hall in the center of the square, built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, is one of the finest examples of Gothic civic architecture in the region.

The most delightful discovery Wroc?aw offers to visitors is its army of gnomes. Beginning in the early 2000s, small bronze dwarf sculptures — typically between 15 and 30 centimeters tall — began appearing around the city in unexpected places: at the bases of buildings, on windowsills, in gutters, beside tram tracks. This began as a political statement — the gnomes were a symbol of the Orange Alternative protest movement that had playfully subverted communist authority in the 1980s. They became a cultural phenomenon. Today more than 350 dwarfs inhabit the streets of Wroc?aw, each with a distinct character and activity — a firefighter dwarf, a sleepy dwarf, a book-reading dwarf, a cyclist dwarf. Hunting for dwarfs has become a beloved pastime for visitors and a charming introduction to the city's wit and spirit.

Cathedral Island — Ostrów Tumski — is the oldest part of Wroc?aw, standing on the island where the settlement that would become the city was first established. The Gothic Cathedral of St John the Baptist, with its twin towers, anchors the island. Walking through Ostrów Tumski at dusk, when the gas lamps are lit by a lamplighter still doing his rounds in the traditional way, is one of the most atmospheric experiences in Polish urban life.

The University of Wroc?aw is home to the Aula Leopoldina, a Baroque ceremonial hall that is widely regarded as the most beautiful Baroque interior in Central Europe. Its painted ceilings, gilded stucco work, allegorical sculptures, and overall exuberance of decoration create a space of breathtaking ornamental richness — a reminder that Breslau was one of the great cultural centers of the Habsburg world.

Wroc?aw also claims an unusual artistic treasure: the Panorama of the Battle of Rac?awice, a giant cyclorama painting created in 1894 to celebrate the centenary of the 1794 battle in which Ko?ciuszko's forces defeated a Russian army. The painting is 15 meters high and 114 meters in circumference, wrapped around the inside of a cylindrical building so that visitors standing on a central platform are completely surrounded by the scene of battle. The illusion of depth and reality created by the combination of painted background and three-dimensional foreground elements is remarkable.

Poland's UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Poland has 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — one of the highest totals in Europe and a testimony to the extraordinary density and diversity of its cultural and natural heritage. These sites represent Poland's most internationally recognized treasures and provide an excellent framework for understanding the country's historical depth.

The Historic Centre of Kraków was among the first inscriptions on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1978, recognized for its remarkably preserved medieval and Renaissance urban fabric, including the Royal Wawel Castle and Cathedral, the Main Market Square, and the surrounding historic districts.

The Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines were also inscribed in 1978. The Wieliczka mine, with its underground chapels and chambers carved from salt over seven centuries, is one of the most extraordinary industrial heritage sites in the world.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp was inscribed in 1979 — the criterion being that it represents "an exceptional testimony to one of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity."

The Historic Centre of Warsaw was inscribed in 1980, specifically recognizing the post-war reconstruction of the city as an outstanding example of the restoration of historical urban landscapes after devastating destruction.

The Old City of Zamo?? in eastern Poland — a perfect Renaissance planned city built from scratch in the late sixteenth century by the magnate Jan Zamoyski according to Italian urban design principles — was inscribed in 1992.

The Medieval Town of Toru?, with its extraordinary collection of Gothic civic, religious, and domestic architecture and its connections to the Teutonic Knights and to Copernicus, was inscribed in 1997.

The Castle of the Teutonic Knights in Malbork was inscribed in 1997, recognized as the largest brick castle in the world and an outstanding example of medieval fortification.

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska — a pilgrimage complex in the foothills of the Beskids near Kraków, consisting of a seventeenth-century Mannerist park and pilgrimage church — was inscribed in 1999.

The Bia?owie?a Forest, straddling the border between Poland and Belarus, was inscribed as a natural site in 1979 and extended in 1992, recognized for its exceptional biodiversity and its status as the last remnant of the primeval European lowland forest.

The Churches of Peace in Jawor and ?widnica in Lower Silesia — two vast timber-framed Protestant churches built in the seventeenth century under extraordinary conditions — were inscribed in 2001.

The Wooden Churches of Southern Little Poland — a collection of historic timber-framed Roman Catholic churches in the Ma?opolska and Subcarpathian regions — were inscribed in 2003.

The Muskauer Park, straddling the Polish-German border on the Nysa River, is an extraordinary landscape garden created in the nineteenth century by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and inscribed in 2004.

The Centennial Hall in Wroc?aw — a pioneering reinforced concrete structure built in 1913 and a landmark of early modernist architecture — was inscribed in 2006.

Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and its Underground Water Management System in Upper Silesia was inscribed in 2017, recognized for its technical innovation in mining and water management from the sixteenth century onward.

The Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region — a collection of timber-frame Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches straddling the Polish-Ukrainian border — were inscribed in 2013.

Krzemionki Prehistoric Striped Flint Mining Region in ?wi?tokrzyskie Province — one of the best preserved prehistoric flint mining complexes in the world, used from approximately 3900 to 1600 BCE — was inscribed in 2019.

The Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, extended to include sites in multiple European countries, rounds out Poland's seventeen inscriptions.

These seventeen World Heritage Sites span an extraordinary range — from prehistoric flint mines to a medieval royal capital, from the last primeval forest to an industrial salt mine turned underground cathedral, from a Renaissance planned city to the monuments of the Holocaust. Together they constitute one of the richest UNESCO portfolios in Europe.

Additional Cities and Regions Worth Exploring