Friday, May 18th, 2012
Marie Grant takes pleasure in Wroclaw before the barbarians arrive.
ON FRIDAY June 8th the UEFA European Championships 2012 – co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine – will kick off at Wroclaw’s purpose-built Municipal Stadium. The team sheets can’t be predicted – but another unknown quantity is the city itself…
Stranger than diction
Most Brits would struggle to pronounce the name (VROTSLOVE) or bag a flight – just one direct to join the migrants at silly o’clock time in somewhere obscure. Finding it on a map might tax many including er, those who didn’t pay a call till a week ago. Its region, Upper Silesia, is actually nearer the Czech and German borders than to many parts of Poland.
Identity crises
The local slogan for the city on the River Odra (Oder) is “the meeting place”. No kidding. Wroclaw has been at the meeting point of empires: Bohemian, Austro-Hungarian, Prussian and last – and most ignominiously – the Third Reich. It’s seen glory but has also suffered its fair share of woe – natural and man-made.
History remembered
In 1945, the formerly German Breslau – minus the deceased third of its pre-war population – became Wroclaw. In an event replete with symbolism, the White Stork Synagogue re-opened last year 73 years after its destruction during Kristallnacht.
On the buses
When the 406 bus drops travellers from Copernicus Airport at the railway station terminus it’s beyond disorientating. The scene looms like a monster building site as this quarter is refurbished for visiting fans next summer. It’s five hour’s car journey from Warsaw, 175km from Poznan and a whopping 480km from Gdansk, the other three Polish venues in the tournament.
European City of Drunken Stags and Hens?
So what’s next for Wroclaw? Its eyes are fixed on European City of Culture in 2016. As its streets are a veritable bastion of wowster architecture and one lively arts venue after another – it is only a matter of time before the tourists wake up to them.
Marie Grant is wowdewow Travel Editor. If this is Wroclaw then she didn’t fly with Ryanair.
Do like you cities rich in culture or do you prefer a nice cool lager and some chairs to throw around? Your feedback very welcome below in readers comments.
Well, what do you think?
wowdewow is always looking for new bloggers. If you want to blog on the above or anything else, please feel free to write to the editor, nathan@wowdewow.com, and he’ll be only too pleased to send you blogging guidelines
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Tags: architecture, arts venues, Austro-Hungarian, Bohemia, Bohemian, Breslau, Copernicus airport, European City of Culture 2016, Gdansk, hen and stag nights, Kristallnacht, migrants, Poland, Poznan, Prussian, River Oder, River Odra, ryanair, third reich, UEFA European Championships 2012, ukraine, Upper Silesia, Warsaw, White Stork Synagogue, Wroclaw
It is perhaps not the first place you would consider in visiting in Poland but it can really stand up with Warsaw Krakow and Gdansk.
It is full of suprises.