Well, catch yourself a weekend break: as promised, today I will tell you about Wroclaw and his curiosities.
The first thing that caught my eye - the weather in the city changes several times a day! Rain, sun, rain, cloudy, sun, rain ... I have never seen one like this in London! By the way, Wroclaw is sometimes even compared to London: here too you can hear different languages and speeches from everywhere. Wroclaw is a student city, and tourists from neighboring Germany are often visited here. Many of them are looking for their roots here. The current "indigenous" population of the city is Polish immigrants from Lviv. And the inhabitants who inhabited it earlier were resettled in Germany after the Second World War.
At one time, the city boasted an incredible amount of beautiful architecture and ancient bridges - more than 300 of them. Much of this legacy was destroyed by war. But even today, in the midst of what remains, there are many elegant buildings with interesting stories to be found.
In Wroclaw (as well as in Gdansk and Warsaw) the Free Walking Tour offers free English and German excursions (anyone can leave the guides for tea at any cost). You will also be presented with a free map as a gift with the most important information about the city (vocabulary where to eat, where to look at the city from above, buy souvenirs, what movies to see about Wroclaw, what books to read).
This year, the city acts as the European Capital of Culture - so all museums are free.
The city is absolutely flat and you will find only one staircase in the center, at the entrance to the Jewish Quarter. The fact is that here in ancient times the city began. Merchants who came to Market Square to sell their store brought dirt and marsh soles to their soles (of course, there were no garbage cans and garbage cans at that time), and over the years the center became a bit taller than the surrounding neighborhoods.
By the way, did you notice that in order to enter any Gothic church, you have to go down a step or two? All Gothic churches were built on a par with the city - what it once was.
In Wroclaw, you will find (if you search carefully or sign up for a proper excursion) more than 350 gnomes. Their story is related to the Wroclaw Orange Revolution. Professors and students protested against communists who seized influence in the city. They did it in a peaceful way, using irony. For example, rolls of toilet paper (a rare thing in communist cities) were distributed to the townspeople. For that, they were imprisoned. Activists also painted graffiti on the walls with communists, go home or freedom of democracy texts. The authorities painted these inscriptions in white paint. There were more and more white spots on the houses in the city.
The townspeople undertook to draw gnomes on them (kraal - the gnome in Polish resembles the sound of the word red, red; a word associated with communism). Subsequently, in the time of democracy, in memory of the Orange Rebels, 10 first dwarves were installed in the city. But they have become such a great attraction that it is now a great marketing, albeit a very expensive, move. Setting a circle for your institution of the appropriate gnome is a good way to attract a tourist (at least to your gnome).
In the city you will also find a monument to "Animals We Eat" by an anonymous Consumer.
There are many legends and interesting sights in Cathedral Island. But to me, the most romantic thing about it is that all the lights are still kerosene. Fifteen minutes before sunset, a man in a long black cloak walks the streets and lights the lanterns. One by one.
There are also many legends about the old university. But if I start preaching them, the Free Trips guys will surprise you.
They will also tell you what two squares are in the center: one is German and the other is Polish (Wroclaw's Polish propagandists had a good strategy). They will also tell how, having just rebuilt the city, they survived a great flood (the students went to study by boat, this is an adventure!), which destroyed a lot in the city. But it was then that the townspeople actually began to worry about his fate. And they changed his face beyond recognition. (By the way, in the city you can often see photos that they used to be.)
There are several Ukrainian establishments in the city, but once again I want to tell you about one that I was so good at. I know, it is frank advertising, but I do wish that the young owners succeeded and we were able to come there for Christmas: the windows of the cafe "Pod Zlotym Pucharem" go just to the square where it happens (one of the best in Europe!). By the way, I already dream of a wide-angle lens, because in my portrait artist there were only very small fragments of beauty outside the window.
But other times of the year are good, too: the old town hall with jigsaws, the square, the music, the bubbles, the horses with the breeches and the everyday beauty of the old European town. And it is also delicious (salted caramel nut cake is my favorite) and inexpensive (for example, at the popular Costa Coffee for similar cakes and coffee you would have to pay more).