This was one of the easiest journeys to the top of a church or cathedral tower in Poland, primarily because there were no steps and instead there was a handily located lift. I think this is mostly because the cathedral was badly damaged during the Second World War, so when the building was reconstructed it was relatively easy to install a lift.
So, some photos from the top….
The city’s market hall building is a spectacular piece of engineering, constructed between 1906 and 1908. The building was designed by Richard Plüddemann and Heinrich Küster, at a time when Wroclaw was part of the German Empire and was known as Breslau.
Through some piece of good fortune, this was one of the buildings which wasn’t damaged during the Second World War, so it re-opened again soon after the end of the conflict. Other than for some repairs and improvements made between 1980 and 1983, it remains broadly as it would have been 100 years ago.
When I visited the hall it was relatively busy, with most people appearing to be locals buying their produce. In some cities I get the impression that the majority of people there are tourists who are more interested in taking photos than making any purchases from the stalls. I must admit that this was what I was doing, although I did buy something from one of the hot food stands at least on this occasion.
There were several of these photos on boards around Wroclaw, so visitors could stand in the same place as the original photograph had been taken.
The location today. There was a period when “then and now” books were really popular, it’s a shame that this concept hasn’t been used in more cities to help bring the past to life a little.
This restaurant is located in the main market square and is a fusion of Asian and European cuisines. When I visited in October 2017 it was rated highly on TripAdvisor, but today it has risen to being the top rated restaurant in the city.
With no disrespect to the glorious city of Bydgoszcz, this didn’t feel like the restaurant that I would have expected here. Gloriously on-trend, modern and exciting even back in 2017, it felt like it should be something more suited to Warsaw or a capital city.
This is a Bavarian wheat beer, it was refreshing and crisp as well being at the appropriate temperature. For perfection from this restaurant, I’d have liked a better selection of craft beers. But I mention that a lot.
A cream of sweet potato soup, which despite being rather vegetabley was still excellent. A pleasant and quite powerful taste, with a creamy edge, and some texture from the vegetables.
Beef cheeks with carrots, all rather artful in its presentation. The beef was tender and moist, falling apart as I cut into it, whilst the carrots added texture. The sauce was rich and it all came together beautifully.
It wasn’t overly busy when I visited on a weekday lunch-time back in October 2017, but the service was polite and welcoming. The staff spoke English, which was helpful as ever, and everything seemed professional and properly done. I’m not at all surprised that this restaurant continues to be so well reviewed.
As prices go in Poland, this was a little expensive at the equivalent of around £8 for two courses and a beer. However, it would be hard to get anywhere near that value in the UK for that quality of food and service.
Installed in 2010, this is the ‘Wanderer’ sculpture by Michał Kubiak, a local man who has exhibited works around the world. There are also numerous other sculptures by Kubiak around the city and he also designed one of the doors at Bydgoszcz Cathedral.
This cafe doesn’t perhaps have the most traditional of Polish names, but it is certainly descriptive and has a suitable range of coffees and cakes. It’s located within Bydgoszcz railway station and has a decent size seating area.
The latte and sponge cake, which cost the equivalent of just over £2. Both were perfectly acceptable, the sponge was fresh and the latte had a depth of flavour to it. I’m planning to go back to Bydgoszcz by train in early 2020 and so I might pop in here again, just to check they’re maintaining their standards….
Photos from Bydgoszcz. These are from November 2017 which justifies why one of the images has a Christmas tree in it……
Some imagination had gone into the street art in Bydgoszcz, with this piece located at Księdza Piotra Skargi loosely translated as “the breakfast of champions”.
This beer cost me the equivalent of 40p in an Aldi in Bydgoszcz, so my expectations were relatively moderate. It’s not a bad beer at all though, slightly watery, but a sufficiently rich taste to make it entirely drinkable. There are some flavours of caramel shining through and looking back on this purchase, I should have perhaps procured a few more…
Majdanek concentration camp is surprisingly central within Lublin, it’s within a built-up area of the city. So what went on here might not have been entirely public knowledge to the locals during the Second World War, but nor was it completely hidden.
The camp is relatively intact, which is primarily because the Soviets were able to march into Lublin before the Germans had been able to destroy evidence of what had happened here. There is still some controversy on exactly how much killing and torture went on here, but it looks fairly undeniable that there were war crimes and acts against humanity which took place.
The camp was first established in October 1941 on the orders of Heinrich Himmer and it was initially intended to house prisoners of war. Majdanek became used though as part Operation Reinhard, which was the extermination of Polish Jews. It was also used as a storage depot for property stolen from the Jews, with enormous volumes of material being collected.
There were five commandants of the camp between October 1941 and July 1944 when it was eventually liberated. None of the five survived long after the war, two were executed by the SS for theft, one committed suicide and two were executed following war crimes trials.
When I visited there was a group from Israel who were, if I’m being honest, acting disgracefully. The supervisors of the group were lax, although someone sensible within the party did manage to get control of the situation. Of all the locations for a school group to be out of control, this was not it. Anyway, they all left around an hour into my visit, and it remained very peaceful and quiet after that with few visitors at the site.
Interestingly, there were reports in the British media about this concentration camp as early as 1944. It was reported in the Nottingham Journal, amongst others, on 30 August 1944 (actually after the liberation, but no doubt the report from the correspondent had taken some time to arrive with the newspapers) that:
“It was a factory – a factory of death, its shops were gas chambers, the chimneys belonged to the crematorium where corpses were burned. Along the roads men, women and children were driven and beaten to death, while 200 dogs were trained to participate in mass murder by tearing the victims to pieces.
Even the barracks were used as an instrument of death, because the Germans mixed healthy people with those suffering from infectious diseases. There were even profits. The Germans sold the urns with the ashes from the crematorium to the relatives of the murdered people, saying it was their ashes and exacted 500 to 3,000 zlotys.”
The correspondence who wrote this report also said that prisoners were searched on arrival and he was able to see the large warehouses filled with the possessions which had been stolen from them.
I did see a video of the site on Youtube about the liberation, which I think is this one being advertised on Amazon.
I’ve posted separately about numerous other aspects of the site, and these posts include:
