Wrocław is a city of bridges and dwarfs: the Market Square with its Gothic town hall, Ostrów Tumski with the cathedral, the Centennial Hall on the UNESCO list and the green islands of the Oder. Most sights are within walking distance, and the rich offer of museums and parks works for family trips too.
Gardens
Wrocław
The University of Wrocław Botanical Garden is one of the most peaceful things to do in Wrocław (say "VROTS-wahf"), Poland's third-largest city and the capital of Lower Silesia. Tucked behind the cathedral on Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island…
Old towns & squares
Wrocław
Ostrów Tumski in Wrocław (Cathedral Island, pronounced roughly OS-troof TOOM-skee, VROTS-wahv) is the oldest part of the city: a former island in the Oder River where the Piast dynasty built a stronghold in the 10th century and where a bis…
Gardens
Wrocław
Szczytnicki Park (roughly "shchit-NEE-tskee") is Wrocław's grand green lung: about 250 acres (100 ha) of old trees, ponds and lawns right next to the UNESCO-listed Centennial Hall. Laid out in 1783, it was one of the first English-style la…
Museums
Wrocław
The Four Domes Pavilion in Wrocław is a modernist exhibition hall by German architect Hans Poelzig that now houses the Museum of Contemporary Art, a branch of the National Museum in Wrocław. Standing next to the UNESCO-listed Centennial Ha…
Gardens
Wrocław
The Pergola and Multimedia Fountain in Wrocław (say "VROTS-wahf") is one of the city's favorite free things to do: a vine-covered, half-oval colonnade from 1913 wraps around a pond where Poland's largest multimedia fountain has danced to m…
Landmarks
Wrocław
The Old Town Hall in Wrocław (say "VROTS-wahf") is the showpiece of the city's Market Square and one of the best-preserved medieval town halls in Central Europe. Built over roughly 250 years, its brick walls, lacy stone gables and slender…
Viewpoints
Wrocław
The Sky Tower Observation Deck in Wrocław (VROTS-wahv) sits on the 49th floor, about 200 m above the city, in the tallest building in Lower Silesia. From the top you can take in the whole of Wrocław: the Oder River and its islands, the spi…
Landmarks
Wrocław
At the entrance to Stare Jatki from Odrzańska Street stands a group of bronze animals – a goose with an egg, a goat, a pig, a piglet, a duck, a rabbit and a giant rooster – and a plaque in the cobbles reads: "In honour of slaughtered anima…
Monuments & mounds
Wrocław
Wrocław is home to about 1,040 bronze dwarfs: by cash machines, on window sills, under street lamps and at office doors. The thousandth figure was unveiled in September 2025 – and this whole little population has a surprisingly serious ori…
Landmarks
Wrocław
Piasek Island in Wrocław (say "PYAH-sek," meaning "sand") is a small island in the Oder River between the Old Town and Cathedral Island, and it lies on the city's most scenic walking route. It's dominated by the Gothic Church of the Virgin…
Other
Wrocław
Słodowa Island is a small, green island in the Oder right next to the Old Town, where students sit on the grass on warm evenings and the riverside offers a view of the Baroque main building of the University of Wrocław. It looks like a pla…
Castles
Wrocław
Topacz Castle (Zamek Topacz, pronounced roughly "ZAH-mek TOH-pach") in the village of Ślęza, just beyond Wrocław's southern city limits, is a medieval residential tower that grew into a Renaissance manor and now operates as a hotel with re…
Zoos
Wrocław
Wrocław Zoo (Zoo Wrocław; the city is pronounced VROTS-wahf) is the oldest zoo within Poland's present borders, open since 1865, and one of the most visited zoos in Europe. Around 12,000 animals of more than 1,100 species live on about 32…