Świeradów-Zdrój — radon springs and a wooden promenade hall in the Jizera Mountains

From a forest inn to a spa town

The settlement first appears in writing in 1524, as a forest inn called Fegebeutel; the name Flinsberg, which stuck for the next four centuries, turns up in documents a few decades later. A physician, Leonhard Thurneysser, described the healing effect of the local waters in 1572, but an organised spa was still two hundred years away.

A well house was raised over the upper spring in 1768, and the first bath house followed in 1795. Early in the nineteenth century a second spring was found in the bed of the Kwisa, and a separate lower spa district grew up around it. A fire in 1895 destroyed much of the spa quarter, which is why most of what stands in the centre today dates from after that year.

After 1945 the German population was expelled and the town briefly carried the name Wieniec-Zdrój. In 1946 it received its present name, which refers to the medieval hermit Andrew Świerad, together with town rights. Czerniawa-Zdrój was absorbed in 1973, yet it still appears in the national register of spas as an entry of its own.

What the waters are for

Świeradów is a statutory spa, and in the official classification it belongs to the small group of mountain resorts. Treatment rests on radon-bearing carbonated mineral waters of varying strength, taken both as a drinking cure and in baths, alongside peat mud from local deposits.

A strongly radioactive spring was tapped here in 1934 and a radium bath house opened, which settled the character of the place. The resort treats mainly rheumatic conditions and disorders of the musculoskeletal system, combining water, radon and mud therapies.

The climate counts as a second resource. The town spreads between 450 and 710 metres above sea level in a valley enclosed by Jizera ridges, so the air is cooler and damper than in the foothills. The range of elevation within the town is wide enough that walking from the lower district to the upper one is a genuine climb.

The Spa House and eighty metres of timber

The new Spa House opened in 1899, four years after the fire. It was given a clock tower 46 metres high and a terrace more than a hundred and sixty metres long, with a spa park laid out around it that still organises the centre of town.

The oddest part is the wooden promenade hall adjoining it: eighty metres of covered timber structure, the longest of its kind in Lower Silesia. Halls like this were built so that patients could take their prescribed walks whatever the weather, which in a mountain resort with generous rainfall was a practical matter rather than a flourish.

The neo-Gothic church of Saint Joseph dates from the same turn of the century, built in 1898–1899. Together with the sanatoria of the early twentieth century it preserves the look of a resort from the era when visitors came for several weeks rather than a weekend.

Above the town: Stóg Izerski and the SkyWalk

A gondola lift to Stóg Izerski, a summit of roughly one thousand and sixty metres, began running in 2008. A ski area works up there in winter, and for the rest of the year the lift shortens the approach to the ridge paths and to the mountain hut below the top.

In 2021 the SkyWalk observation tower opened above the town, currently among the largest structures of its kind in the region. The view makes clear how tightly the resort is wedged between the ridges.

The Jizera Mountains differ in character from the neighbouring Karkonosze: lower, more rounded, with broad peat bogs on the high flats. The Czech border runs a few kilometres to the west, so walks can easily be planned across both sides of it.

Getting there

• By car — about thirty kilometres south of Lubań and a similar distance from Jelenia Góra, on regional roads through Mirsk or through Czerniawa-Zdrój.
• By train — the line to Mirsk was built in 1909; after decades without service, passenger trains returned in December 2023.
• By public transport — the nearest larger interchanges are Jelenia Góra and Lubań, with onward buses to the resort.
• On foot and by bike — marked routes lead towards Szklarska Poręba and the Karkonosze range, and across the border into the Czech Republic.

Worth knowing

The difference in elevation inside the town is easy to underestimate. Guesthouses and sanatoria are spread across the lower and the upper district, and a quarter of an hour on foot can mean several dozen metres of ascent, which matters more when planning a day than the distance on a map.

Weather in the Jizera range turns faster than in the valleys and is often cooler than a forecast for Jelenia Góra suggests. A rain jacket earns its place in any month, and the promenade hall and spa park are enough to sit out a passing shower without going indoors.

This is a small place, with fewer than four thousand residents, and out of season it is genuinely quiet. For some visitors that is the whole point; others treat it as a base and add trips into the Karkonosze or over to the Czech side.

How to get there and practical info

Location

Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Lubań County, the Kwisa valley in the Jizera Mountains, close to the Czech border

What it is

a statutory spa town, officially classed as a mountain resort; present name and town rights since 1946

Resources and treatments

radon-bearing mineral waters for drinking and bathing, local peat mud, mountain climate

Main therapeutic focus

rheumatic conditions and musculoskeletal disorders

Elevation

450 to 710 m above sea level; town area about 20.7 km²

Spa architecture

Spa House of 1899 with a 46 m clock tower, an 80 m wooden promenade hall, the spa park, and the church of St Joseph of 1898–1899

Nearby

Stóg Izerski with its gondola lift, the SkyWalk tower, Czerniawa-Zdrój, Szklarska Poręba and the Karkonosze mountains

Current hours and tickets

official website of the town of Świeradów-Zdrój

When to go