Bogumił Hoff Square in Wisła

Wisła has no classic medieval market square. Its heart is Bogumił Hoff Square (plac Bogumiła Hoffa), shaped in the 1930s when this Beskid village was turning into a fashionable resort. The square is named after the man who "discovered" Wisła for holidaymakers, and since 2001 the lobby of the functionalist Spa House has displayed a figure of ski jumper Adam Małysz made of white chocolate.

History: from "God's Gift" to spa town

Bogumił Hoff, a folk-culture researcher from Radom and an associate of the ethnographer Oskar Kolberg, visited Wisła in 1882 and began promoting its charms in the press and among friends. In 1885, on a plot bought so cheaply that he called it "Boży Dar" (God's Gift), he built the first holiday villa, "Warszawa". His work was continued by the philosopher Julian Ochorowicz, while Hoff's son Bogdan, an architect, designed further guesthouses.

Real growth came between the wars. In 1929 the railway reached the centre of Wisła, and in the 1930s the town's centre shifted to the area of today's Hoff Square, where modern spa buildings went up. Among them were the municipal office with the post office and the Spa House with its cinema hall, designed in a plain, functionalist style.

What to see

• The Spa House (Dom Zdrojowy) – an interwar modernist building with the chocolate Małysz in its lobby, plus the arcades along the square.
• The chocolate figure, made in 2001 by members of the Polish Confectioners' Association: it stood 2.5 m tall and weighed 180 kg, carved from a 330 kg block of white chocolate. In 2023 the town announced a new, life-size figure because the old one had aged badly.
• The Wisła Culture Centre, based at pl. Hoffa 3 in the Spa House building, and the nearby roofed Stanisław Hadyna Amphitheatre with around 2,500 seats, one of the stages of the Beskid Culture Week festival.
• The pedestrian street ul. 1 Maja, home to a museum dedicated to Adam Małysz.

Interesting facts

Wisła is the only town in Poland where Lutherans make up the majority of residents. A few minutes from Hoff Square, on plac Stellera, the Beskid Museum occupies a former inn from 1794, with a group of wooden cottages behind it. The town's two largest churches stand nearby as well.

Tripto tip

The square is open at all times and free; an hour is enough for a stroll and a look inside the Spa House. Summer is the liveliest time, especially during the Beskid Culture Week, when folk ensembles fill the amphitheatre. If you want to see the chocolate Małysz, check the opening hours of the Spa House and the tourist information office. Hoff Square is a good starting point for the Beskid Museum and a walk along the young Vistula river.