The Town Hall in Poznan © Ricky Yates
We left Malbork in the late morning of Sunday 18th October and, after crossing the Wisla/Vistula river, joined the major north-south motorway that comes from Gdansk and heads towards Warsaw. We then made speedy progress southwards, at the expense of a relatively modest toll. Having crossed the Wisla/Vistula river twice more, just south of Torun, we left the motorway and headed south-west to Poznan.
As well as booking us into a double room in the Tey Hostel, located right in the middle of the historic city centre of Poznan, Sybille had also downloaded a map to her tablet, to help us negotiate the narrow one-way streets and reach our destination. The advice of the hostel was to drive to the front door, unload, and pick up a parking permit for an off-street parking place, located a short distance away.
Unfortunately, when we reached Poznan, we discovered that several roads had either been changed to being one-way in the opposite direction, or were closed because of work to install underground cables, water pipes or sewers. We ended up getting completely lost and frustrated, despite thinking we had come well-prepared to find the hostel. After going around in circles for about forty-five minutes, Sybille spotted a ‘hostel’ sign.
The street ahead is closed! © Sybille Yates
We were actually in a spot where it was possible to at least temporarily park the car. So I stopped and Sybille ran off. I couldn’t drive any further forward because the road ahead was dug up and closed 🙁 When Sybille returned, around ten minutes later, she told me that the sign was for the wrong hostel, but she had found the right one, just around the corner. As it appeared safe to leave the ‘Carly’ where it was parked, at least for a short while, we unloaded all that we needed, and carried it to the hostel and put it in our room.
After this, I collected my parking permit from the hostel receptionist. She gave me a small map, on which she marked where the correct place was to park the ‘Carly’. ‘But which route do I take to get from where the ‘Carly’ is currently sitting, to the off street parking place?’, I asked. Even she wasn’t sure because of all the disruption caused by temporary road closures. But with a slight further deviation, her suggested route worked. Health warning – don’t try driving into the historic centre of Poznan if you want to maintain your sanity!
Despite these initial hassles, I very much enjoyed Poznan. Whilst it isn’t as grand as either Kraków or Wroclaw, it therefore means that it attracts far fewer tourists. Yet the central market square consists of a whole variety of attractive buildings, including the Town Hall above, which dates from the middle of the sixteenth century, and a row of arcaded buildings, adjoining the Town Hall, which you can see in the photograph below.
Arcaded buildings in the market square of Poznan © Sybille Yates
Inappropriate Communist era architecture in Poznan © Ricky Yates
Unfortunately, within the main market square, there are examples of inappropriate Communist era architecture, no doubt replacing buildings destroyed during the Second World War. We were interested to see that in front of these relatively new buildings, there was a statue of Sv. Jan Nepomuk, a very famous Czech saint.
The exteriors of many of the buildings that surround the central market square, are highly decorated. It was difficult to choose which ones to post here. As in the Czech Republic, there is sometimes a stark contrast between the exquisite artwork on the buildings, and the use made of the ground floor premises, such as in the fourth example below. From our observations over the two weeks of our travels, kebabs seem to be a very popular takeaway food in Poland 🙂
 Exterior artwork in Poznan © Ricky Yates |
 Exterior artwork in Poznan © Ricky Yates |
 Exterior artwork in Poznan © Ricky Yates |
 Exterior artwork in Poznan © Ricky Yates |
To the east of the historic city centre, on an island created by two branches of the Warta river, stands Poznan Cathedral, dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. A Church has stood on this site for over a thousand years. It has been rebuilt and remodelled several times since, and has been more recently restored to its earlier Gothic form, after suffering damage during the Second World War.
 The exterior of Poznan Cathedral © Ricky Yates |
 The interior of Poznan Cathedral © Sybille Yates |
Hi Ricky,
Poznan seems to have won your heart despite your traffic and parking problems and it certainly comes across well in your photographs. I have several Polish work colleagues from the region around Poznan who are in a constant struggle to upstage a group from the Torun region in a wonderfully funny competition about whose place is best. This has been carried on since some of our (Irish) colleagues went to Poznan to follow the Irish soccer team in its ‘glorious’ endeavours in Euro 2012. 🙁 They came back downcast at our sorry exit from the championship but full of the praises of the people and city of Poznan and started a tiny ongoing oneupmanship battle between our Polish friends. I have to add that this battle is entirely friendly and funny and totally lacking in the spite and pettiness often seen in such affairs. It has resulted in a group of ‘Paddies’ who nearly know more about Pierogi, Zurek and Kielbasa than about potatoes and cabbage or Irish stew. Strangely we can’t seem to find a winner, long may it continue 😉
Hi Sean,
We certainly did enjoy Poznan, despite all our initial hassles. Being realistic, you can’t expect to have running water, sewerage, etc in historic buildings in a historic city centre, without streets being dug up to install or upgrade various utilities. There is so much work to be done after 40 years of neglect under communism. The same applies in Prague too.
Thank you once more, for your compliments regarding the photos, which you will see are a mixture of mine & Sybille’s. As ever, I had difficulty deciding which ones to include, especially the very many we took of buildings with exterior artwork around the central market square.
I think nearly every country has inter-city or inter-region rivalries. There is great rivalry between Prague & Brno, very similar to what you describe amongst your Polish colleagues from Poznan and Torun. And yes – we did enjoy pierogi – several times!
The colors of the buildings in that arcade are so beautiful! And the communist building reminds me a lot (on a smaller scale) of a similar one in Dresden. Beautiful architecture all around and then… that 😉
Was not able to visit Poznan last time but it looked like a nice place to explore and spend some time.
I loved the colours of that arcade too, Cynthia. As for inappropriate communist era buildings, there are sadly, a few in Prague too!
Poznan wasn’t originally one of our planned places to visit in Poland. But when we looked at how to get from Malbork to Wroclaw, it seemed like a good place to break the journey & spend some time & we were certainly not disappointed.
Beautiful!
Indeed it is, Stephen!
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Poor Carly! We had a similar driving-in-circles experience while finding our accommodation in Madrid recently. Made me want to ditch cars altogether! Good thing it didn’t dampen your opinion of Poznan. What a charming city, according to your photos.
I laughed at your choice of adjective – “inappropriate” – to describe the Communist Era buildings. They are jarring compared to the old wedding cake architecture, aren’t they?
Historic city centres were never designed for cars, Em. It is why I rarely drive into the centre of Prague but instead, use public transport. But all we were trying to do was follow the instructions given by the hostel. It was so frustrating to know we were so close to our accommodation but unable to find it. I’m sure you felt the same in Madrid.
‘Jarring’ is an equally accurate description of those Communist Era buildings. As I said in response to Cynthia, there are sadly some examples in Prague too 🙁
Another fascinating place to have visited, Ricky, though I bet you could have done without the unexpected mystery tour! I love the exquisite exterior artwork, especially on the bottom left of your four photos and the cathedral is very fine.
We could have certainly have done without what you euphemistically describe as our ‘unexpected mystery tour’ 🙁 It was so frustrating when Sybille, as my navigator, had gone online in advance, to try to make the journey easy & simple.
But I certainly did still enjoy Poznan. As I said in reply to Sean, I had great difficulty in deciding which photos of exterior artwork to include. The other joy was that, because Poznan is more off the beaten track, we had the Cathedral virtually to ourselves, in contrast to Kraków.