Poland · Lower Silesia
Wroclaw
A river city of islands and bridges, a painted market square, and several hundred bronze dwarfs hidden in the streets.
Wroclaw is built across a dozen islands where several rivers meet, with more bridges than any Polish city and a market square of tall painted merchant houses around a Gothic town hall. It was German Breslau until 1945, when the population was expelled and replaced almost entirely by Poles displaced from the east, so the city is old and its inhabitants are new. Several hundred small bronze dwarfs are hidden around the streets, and finding them has become the standard way visitors see the place.
Suggested stay
1–3 days
Language
Polish
Currency
PLN
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Wroclaw
The Rynek one of the largest market squares in Europe, ringed by painted gabled houses around an ornate Gothic town hall
The dwarfs hundreds of small bronze figures all over the centre, descended from an absurdist anti-communist protest movement
Cathedral Island a quiet quarter of churches and seminaries where a lamplighter still lights the gas lamps by hand each evening
Water rivers, canals and islands with more bridges than anywhere else in the country, and riverside bars all along them
Best time to visit
Apr-Oct
14-26° days
51.109° N, 17.033° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Warsaw
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Weather & when to go to Wroclaw
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Apr-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Wroclaw
Winter is grey, damp and often below freezing, with short days and the same coal-smoke haze that affects much of southern Poland in still weather. The squares and the riverside, which carry the city's whole social life, empty out for that stretch. Midsummer is warm, occasionally sweltering, and thunderstorms build over the plain, though the city handles it better than the cold.
Top things to do in Wroclaw
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Rynek - the market square
history 👍 PopularAmong the largest medieval squares in Europe, with a block of buildings in the middle rather than open space, and a town hall whose east facade is an extravagance of Gothic stonework and an astronomical clock.
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Hunting the dwarfs
culture arts 👍 PopularSmall bronze figures sit on kerbs, cling to lampposts and doze in doorways all over the centre. They commemorate the Orange Alternative, which mocked the communist authorities with absurdist street happenings in the 1980s.
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Ostrow Tumski
history ⭐ Highly recommendedThe oldest part of the city, an island of brick churches, seminaries and the twin-towered cathedral, where a lamplighter in a cloak still lights the gas lamps by hand every evening.
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Raclawice Panorama
culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedA vast 19th-century painting mounted in the round, over a hundred metres long, depicting a single battle with the ground modelled into the foreground so the join disappears.
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Centennial Hall
historyA pioneering reinforced-concrete dome from 1913 with a span nobody had attempted before, in a park of pergolas and fountains, and inscribed by UNESCO for its engineering.
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The university's Aula Leopoldina
culture artsA baroque assembly hall of sculpture, gilding and ceiling fresco in the old Jesuit university on the river, and a startling room to find behind a plain door.
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The islands and bridges
scenicThe rivers split the city into a scatter of islands linked by more bridges than anywhere else in Poland, with student bars, boat hire and riverside walks between them.
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The Japanese Garden
nature wildlifeA carefully kept garden of ponds, bridges and pines in the park by the Centennial Hall, laid out for the 1913 exhibition and rebuilt with Japanese help in the 1990s.
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The Neon Side gallery
culture artsA courtyard hung with salvaged communist-era neon signs, relit and mounted on the walls, and one of a number of yards off the main streets worth stepping into.
Best areas to stay in Wroclaw
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Stare Miasto
First-time visitors $$The square, the bars and the old streets
Explore hotels in Stare Miasto →
Ostrow Tumski & Nadodrze
Quiet & historic $Churches, river, quieter and older
Explore hotels in Ostrow Tumski & Nadodrze →
Krzyki
Best value $Residential south, everyday city
Explore hotels in Krzyki →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Wroclaw
Getting to & around Wroclaw
Getting there
Fly into Wroclaw airport, about half an hour west of the centre by bus
Flight
Wroclaw Copernicus (WRO)
Thirteen km west of the centre, with mostly European rather than long-haul routes. A city bus runs to the main railway station in about thirty-five minutes on an ordinary transit ticket, and taxis take around twenty.
Train
Wroclaw Glowny
A grand neo-Gothic station with fast trains from Warsaw, Krakow and Poznan, plus international services toward Berlin and Prague
Coach
Wroclaw bus terminal
Regional and international coaches use the terminal beneath the shopping centre next to the main station
Getting around
Walking
The old town and cathedral island are compact and flat, and joined by a chain of bridges and riverside paths
Free
Tram
A dense network covering the centre and the outer districts, and the way to the Centennial Hall
TBC
Bus
Fills the gaps including the airport, on the same tickets as the trams
TBC
City bikes
A large docked scheme on flat ground, with riverside routes that make it genuinely pleasant
TBC
Boat
Seasonal river cruises and small hire boats work the channels between the islands
TBC
Day trips from Wroclaw
Ksiaz Castle
Full dayHilltop castle
The largest castle in Silesia on a wooded spur, with terraced gardens and a network of tunnels dug beneath it by forced labour during the war and never finished.
Getting there
car | train | tour
1 hr 15 min by car or train southwest
Peace Churches of Swidnica and Jawor
Full dayTimber-framed churches
Enormous Protestant churches built entirely of wood, clay and straw under 17th-century rules designed to make them impermanent, and still standing three centuries later.
Getting there
car | train
1 hr by car or train southwest
Karkonosze Mountains
Full dayBorder range
A rounded granite range on the Czech border with a chairlift, waterfalls and a strange stone chapel on the ridge, and a long hut-to-hut walking tradition.
Getting there
car | train | bus
2 hr by car or train southwest
Trzebnica and the Odra valley
Half dayAbbey & river country
A Cistercian abbey with a Romanesque doorway and a pilgrimage tradition, in the flat farmed country along the river north of the city.
Getting there
bus | car
40 min by bus north
Gold mine at Zloty Stok
Full dayHistoric mine
A gold and arsenic mine worked for seven centuries, now walked through by tunnel and boat, with an underground waterfall at the end.
Getting there
car
1 hr 30 min by car south
A little history of Wroclaw
Wroclaw has been Polish, Bohemian, Austrian, Prussian and German, and its name changes with each: Vratislavia, Breslau, Wroclaw. It grew as a Silesian trading city, joined the Hanseatic League, and under Prussian and then German rule became a major industrial and university centre, one of the largest cities in Germany by the early 20th century.
In 1945 it was declared Festung Breslau, a fortress to be held to the last, and was besieged for nearly three months, losing most of its buildings and much of its population. What survived passed to Poland at Potsdam. The German population was expelled and the city repopulated largely by Poles themselves expelled from Lwow and the east, who brought institutions, libraries and the Raclawice Panorama with them. It is a city that was entirely resettled within a single year.
A bishopric is founded on Cathedral Island, the origin of the city
Wroclaw joins the Hanseatic League as a Silesian trading centre
Prussia takes Silesia and the city becomes Breslau
The Centennial Hall opens with the widest concrete dome yet built
The siege of Festung Breslau destroys most of the city over nearly three months
The German population is expelled and the city is resettled by Poles from the east
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / E
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+48
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
FAQs about Wroclaw
▸ How many days do you need in Wroclaw?
One full day covers the square, the cathedral island and the panorama. Two lets you add the Centennial Hall, the university hall and a proper evening on the islands, which is the city at its best.
▸ What is the story with the dwarfs?
They descend from the Orange Alternative, a movement that ridiculed the communist authorities in the 1980s by painting dwarfs over censored graffiti and staging absurd street happenings. The first bronze appeared in 2001 and there are now several hundred.
▸ Wroclaw or Krakow?
Krakow has the greater sights and the heavier history. Wroclaw is less visited, cheaper, and arguably more fun day to day, with the river, the student population and a square that rivals Krakow's without the queues.
▸ Was Wroclaw German?
It was Breslau, and German for two centuries before 1945. The siege destroyed most of it, the German population was expelled, and Poles displaced from the east resettled it. The buildings are old and the community is younger than the buildings.
▸ Is Wroclaw walkable?
The centre entirely so, and pleasantly, since the islands and bridges make short walks interesting. The Centennial Hall is the one major sight that needs a tram.
More in Poland
Gdansk
A rebuilt Hanseatic port where amber, a medieval crane and the shipyard that broke a system all sit within one walk.
✓ best May-SepKrakow
Europe's largest medieval square, a royal castle above the river, and the country's history at its heaviest ninety minutes west.
✓ best Apr-OctPoznan
Where Poland began: the first rulers' graves, a painted market square, and two mechanical goats that butt heads at noon.
✓ best Apr-Oct