Szczecin

• 0.7m
• 62 000
• 823 €
• 1754 h
• Szczecin-Goleniów Solidarność Airport / 45 km

Wały Chrobrego

As a vibrant sea port Szczecin has always welcomed people, goods and ideas from all directions. Perhaps this is why it feels like a country within a country.

Towards the end of the Second World War, when the allies were drafting a new Polish-German border along the river Oder, Szczecin (Stettin) nearly got split between the two countries. The story goes that it took five years, until a treaty was eventually signed between Poland and East Germany in 1950, to settle the border for good a few kilometres west of the city and thus keep it in one piece. Even though the river does not constitute a political border now it does divide Szczecin into two distinct parts – the city proper and Prawobrzeże (the Right Bank). Both of them have their old town centres of medieval provenance. Oder’s many arms, innumerable canals and green islands make a commute between the two parts feel a bit like crossing the Mississippi. The adjacent lake Dąbie is the only in Poland that maritime yachts can sail on.

All of this, along with the presence of a port and a legendary shipyard, where riots against the communist regime started in 1970, reinforce the popular perception that Szczecin is a seaside town, even though it is located 65 kilometres from the Baltic. The sea is nonetheless an important element of the city’s mythology and identity – every family has someone who is or has worked on the sea or in maritime business. Water and greenery (including one of Europe’s largest and most beautiful cemeteries) take up two thirds of the city’s area, but if you choose to rent a kayak and do the 13 kilometre tour around the Oder you may get the impression that the city is all greenery and water.

For a visitor who has already seen Kraków or Warsaw, Szczecin is bound to feel like a different country. In fact, it is located closer to Berlin (130 kilometres), Copenhagen (274 km), Stockholm (454 km) and Prague (507 km) than to Warsaw (516 km), not to mention good old Kraków. It is the largest city and the historical capital of Pomerania (Pomorze), a region that is now split between Poland and Germany (Vorpommern) and has kept changing hands between Poland, Sweden, Prussia, Denmark and Germany throughout the last millennium. As a result, the modern city is an amalgam of different influences.

The houses of the old town (Podzamcze) and the city hall (one of the newest in Poland – reconstruction started in 1998) resemble those on the other side of the border, while the splendid gatehouses (Brama Portowa and Brama Królewska) look like those built around the same time (1600) in Gdańsk. The castle, reconstructed after the Second World War is a loose variation on the Central European Renaissance. A stone’s throw from it is a place where the future empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, née Sophia Anhalt zu Zerbst, was born in 1729. A few blocks away you will find a copy of Verrocchio’s Venetian monument of the condotiere Bartolomeo Colleoni. It was erected in the middle of a roundabout that is one of the hubs of the city’s radial street structure, modelled after Haussman’s plan for Paris (the beauty of Szczecin’s radial plan can be best appreciated from the top floor of the city’s tallest building – the Pazim Tower). If you realise that – as a sea port – Szczecin has always accepted people and goods from abroad and that – as the nearest large city – it is a natural destination for German shoppers, everything starts to make sense.

Odra

Monika Pyrek

Track and field athlete, world champion in pole vaulting, resident of Szczecin

Greenery

Szczecin’s parks are the places I am most eager to return to. I begin my walk at Jasne Błonia that lead into Park Kasprowicza, which is in turn connected with the Arkoński Forest Park. The whole area encompasses over 40 acres of greenery located in the very centre of the city. Flanking Kasprowicza Park from one side is Różanka, a rose garden dating back to 1928 that is bursting with a range of colours and smells – pure magic! The garden fell into oblivion in the 1980s and is now in the process of recovering its charm and beauty – there are over 9,000 roses growing there.

Water
cruises on the river Oder, the price of boat and steersman varies, depending on the route chosen: 100 – 450 PLN

Water is omnipresent in Szczecin, perfectly harmonising with the cityscape. The ‘floating gardens’ slogan used in Szczecin’s promotional campaign is very dear to my heart. I recommend visitors to explore the Oder river through a waterside walk, where impressive architecture clashes with wild nature.

The river can be admired from Wały Chrobrego– viewing terraces that are Szczecin’s signature landmarks and places to find inner calm. My favourite water location Jezioro Szmaragdowe (Emerald Lake), an artificial lake in the Zdroje district, created in 1925 on the site of a flooded chalk excavation pit. The lake’s water is truly emerald in colour and is definitely worth gazing into.

Plac Grunwaldzki

The most beautiful of the city’s star-shaped squares: Paris in Szczecin! However, to me it is not the urban design reminiscent of the French capital that makes this place so beautiful, but the men who frequent it to play chess, beginning in early spring until late autumn.

Łona & Webber

Adam Zieliński, hip-hop artist and Andrzej Mikosz, music producer. Both are based in Szczecin

Royal Gate (Brama Królewska)