The historic centre of Wrocław — Old Town, New Town and the Odra islands

What the 1994 designation covers

Poland introduced the category of Historic Monument into law in 1990, and the first designations were signed four years later. Wrocław was among them: on 8 September 1994 the city's historic centre was recognised as a whole.

The boundary encloses the Old Town, the former New Town and the islands in the Odra. It runs along the University Bridge, Drobnera Street, Bema Square, Sienkiewicza and Wyszyńskiego Streets, across the Peace Bridge, then Słowackiego Avenue and Krasińskiego, Traugutta and Podwale Streets, before following the southern bank of the river back to its start.

What is protected is chiefly the plan: the line of the streets, the size of the plots, the trace of the demolished fortifications, the arrangement of islands and crossings. That changes how the place is best seen. Wandering without a route is not wasted time here, because the pattern itself is the monument.

Cathedral Island, older than the city

The oldest part of Wrocław sits where the Oława flows into the Odra, and for centuries it really was an island. Excavations point to the earliest settlement lying between today's churches of St Martin and the Holy Cross; around the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries some 1,500 people lived there. The Piast stronghold was built of timber and earth, and the first masonry structure was St Martin's chapel, from the early 11th century.

The present Cathedral of St John the Baptist is the fourth church on the site. Work on the Gothic brick choir began in 1244, and the nave and the bases of the western towers were finished by 1341. Fires followed in 1540 and 1759, and between 1873 and 1875 Karl Lüdecke rebuilt the interior and the west front in a neo-Gothic manner. About seventy per cent of the building was damaged in 1945; roofs and vaults were restored by 1951, but the conical spires returned only in 1991. The towers stand 98 metres tall. Inside is the largest pipe organ in Poland, built by Walcker in 1913 and originally installed in the Centennial Hall.

Next door, the collegiate church of the Holy Cross came through the war relatively intact and counted Nicolaus Copernicus among its scholastics between 1503 and 1538. After 1807, when the fortifications were dismantled, the arm of the Odra separating the island from the mainland was filled in, so it has been an island in name only ever since; a pond in the Botanical Garden is what remains of the old channel. The present iron Cathedral Bridge replaced a medieval wooden crossing.

The market square and how it was rebuilt

The left-bank town took several attempts. A first foundation under Henry the Bearded probably came after 1212, then two regularly planned settlements, Civitas Wratislaviensis in 1226 and Novum Forum around 1230, the latter around today's square. The Mongol invasion of 1241 destroyed both; the rebuilt town was merged and extended to a new moat in 1261. The separate New Town was founded in 1263 and absorbed in 1327.

The square now measures roughly 205 by 170 metres, or 3.64 hectares, which puts it among the largest medieval squares in this part of Europe. Thirty-six plots were originally laid out around it, growing to about sixty by the 19th century. The centre is filled by a block containing the Old and New Town Halls, ten streets lead into the square, and the Salt Market adjoins it diagonally at the south-western corner. Beside the town hall stands a ten-metre sandstone pillory of 1492, badly damaged in 1945, taken down in 1947, reconstructed from old drawings and photographs, and unveiled again in 1985.

What the frontages look like today was settled in 1945, when more than sixty per cent of the buildings around the square were destroyed and seventeen survived. Reconstruction was agreed in 1953: twenty-four houses were recreated in historic form, eleven rebuilt or remodelled, thirteen repaired. Most did not get their façade decoration back, so the square reads as a mixture of careful reconstruction and post-war simplification. The last house, known as the Golden Dog, went up only between 1992 and 1994.

Getting there

• By train — Wrocław Główny station is a fifteen-minute walk from the square along Świdnicka Street, and is the easiest arrival from elsewhere in Poland.
• By tram — the Rynek, Świdnicka, Zamkowa and Galeria Dominikańska stops ring the old town; for Cathedral Island get off near the Peace Bridge or Bema Square.
• By car — only authorised vehicles may enter the square itself and the whole centre is paid parking, so leaving the car further out is simpler.
• On foot or by bike — riverside paths connect the square with the islands; it takes a quarter of an hour from the town hall across Sand Island to Cathedral Island.

Planning the walk

One loop works better than several separate outings: the square and town hall, the Salt Market, north towards St Elizabeth's church and the old butchers' stalls, then the university building, the Sand Bridge, Sand Island and finally Cathedral Island. Come back along the far bank of the Odra, where the whole chain of islands lines up in a single view.

Allow at least a full day for the designated area, and two if you plan to go inside things. Churches keep their own changing visiting hours and close during services, so a rigid sequence of interiors rarely survives contact with the day.

The cobbles in the old streets are uneven and the bridges and quays turn slippery after rain, which makes comfortable shoes more useful here than anywhere else in the city.

How to get there and practical info

Location

Wrocław, Lower Silesian Voivodeship; the Old Town, former New Town and the Odra islands

Historic Monument

since 8 September 1994, in the first group of designations

Market square

about 205 by 170 metres, 3.64 hectares

Town foundation

settlements of 1226 and around 1230, merged and extended in 1261

Cathedral towers

98 metres

Rebuilding of the square

agreed in 1953; the last house completed between 1992 and 1994

Time needed

a full day at least, two with interiors

Current opening hours and tickets

official tourism portal of Wrocław

When to go