Wroclaw [german: Breslau], first mentioned as Wortizlawa around 900, lies ca. in the middle of the triangle Berlin – Warsaw – Vienna about 250-300 km away from each capital, 4th largest city in Poland, 61st largest city in europe.
Population: 633.000 [2014] | 641.000 [1990] | 625.000 [1933] | 422.000 [1900]
Wroclaw is a european capital of culture in 2016.
Wroclaw has been the capital of the historical region Silesia [german: Schlesien] and is the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in Poland today. It is the seat of a roman-catholic arch bishop and an evangelic Diocese. In the 15th century it was a member of the Hanseatic League. Together with Silesia Wroclaw has had a very changeful history, belonging successively to Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, Prussia and Germany until 1945. Then the population was completely replaced and the Germans had to leave the city, while Poles that had to leave areas around Lviv in the east had to move in.
The Rynek [engl: Ring] has historically been called the „Breslauer Ring“ and is the main market square of the city. It is an unusual square in the sense that it has a large middle block of buildings (incl. the town hall) with small alleys going through. Hence there are eight sides of the square, the four larger outsides and four inner sides. Here we see the south side, historically called the „Goldene-Becher-Seite“ [engl: the golden cup side] or „Seite beym alten Galgen“ [engl: side at the old gibbet]. Even if it looks historic, almost all buildings on this side had been destroyed in WWII and later been reconstructed resembling the facades of the early 19th century.
Earlier we have published two more outer sides of the Rynek, the westside and the northside:
Click for larger view:
For classic view and more infos about the square (german link):
We did document several more streets and views from Wroclaw, yet unfinnished, so we can add a few previews here:
one side of the middle block on Rynek
the former prison (built 1844-1887) at the Stadtgraben (now Podwale) which is now a district court
the Police Headquarter (built 1927) in Podwale as well
buildings along the street circle around the old town at Kazimierza Wielkiego