A three day family trip to Wrocław
Last weekend we — my wife and our two children — spent a long weekend exploring the city of Wrocław in Poland. It’s the best city I’ve visited, hands down. It’s easy to walk around, clean, safe, has beautiful buildings, oozes culture. The food was excellent, as was transport and there’s loads of things to do. It’s pronounced ‘Vrot-swahf’, if you’re thinking of going.
Here’s what we got up to. I’ve put the total prices of things below in case it’s helpful, in both Polish złoty (zł) and GBP (£). Costs are usually for the four of us.
I’ve also written about how we pack for similar trips with just two cabin sized bags.
Planning
We wanted to book a short family trip away to celebrate my wife’s birthday. We’d originally planned to visit Porto, but the flight times didn’t work out so looked at other options with flights that matched the days we wanted to travel.
Once flights were looking good, we checked out Airbnb filtered by Guest Favourites and those with a decent number of 4.5+ reviews. The Airbnb we chose had a great central location and was light and airy.
We normally use Lonely Planet guides to plan out what to do, but as there isn’t one I ordered this alternative Wrocław guide book which was superb. You can order it on Amazon, too.
Friday
An early start for our 9am flight from East Midlands Airport, and staying at an airport hotel the night before made it so much easier. Landed at 9am at Wrocław Nicolaus Copernicus Airport and caught the 156 bus (14zł / £2.80) directly outside for 20 minute journey into the centre, getting off at Renoma. Spotted the first of the ~600 bronze dwarves that dot the city.
We quickly found a playground in Park Mikołaja Kopernikaso and stopped whilst the kids got dizzy and ran around. Lovely start.
A short stroll later and we were in the centre of the old town. It’s really beautiful; cobbled streets, not-too-busy squares, ornate and colourful buildings. We picked up a free city map from the Dwarf Info shop in the central Market Square, where we also get a map of the Dwarves of Wroclaw (20zł / £4).
Walking in and out of the streets, dwarf spotting as we went, we made our way across Most Piaskowy (Sand Bridge) to the smaller Wyspa Piasek (Sand Island) and then across Most Tumski (Tumski Bridge) to Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island). Spent a few minutes listening to an incredible violinist before stumbling across Rajskie Ogrody, a restaurant with outdoor seating looking across the Odor River. We ordered a pizza to share (best pizza ever according to my son) and pierogi (Polish dumplings). The place was also a hotel with incredibly clean toilets, well worth the charge (3zł / 60p per peerson — typo on purpose).
Post-luch we came across Katedra św. Jana Chrzciciel (Cathedral of St. John the Baptist). It’s a beautiful cathedral and we really enjoyed looking around. Spotted a sign near the entrance saying take a trip to the top of one of the towers via a few flights of stairs and a life. This was an early highlight of stunning views across the city (45zł / £9).
Would have liked to visit the Ogród Botaniczny Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego (Botanical Garden of the University of Wrocław) that we’d spotted from the top of the tower. The tulip display looked incredible (better than it sounds, honest) but it’s around 2pm now and we’re all beginning to flag. Slowly walked the mile or so to our Airbnb and got there just at our check in time. Enjoyed taking off the backpacks and chilled for a few hours.
In the evening we headed out to the market square for some food. Yes, the most touristy place and prices hiked up, but it was lovely to sit and soak up the atmosphere of the place. We ate at Italian (can’t remember name and it’s not on Google maps) and son ordered second pizza of the day. This was the best pizza ever, over taking the best pizza a few hours earlier (240zł / £48).
Walked off the food via Słodowa Island which was nicely crowded with students enjoying the spring evening. Drinks, BBQs, slacklines, hammocks, laughter.
Great day, falling for this place.
Dwarves found: 57
Distance walked: 7.5miles
Saturday
Traditional start to the day with pastries from a local bakery, Chleboteka. (62zł / £12). Busy day lined up after looking at the map.
Pentinents Bridge
Centrally located, Katedra św. Marii Magdaleny we Wrocławiu (Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene), was our list as it has the Pentinents Bridge spanning two towers. In the middle of the bridge is the bronze Witches Tekla and Martynka dwarfs; ticked off the list nice an early. It’s a 700 step climb to the top, so took it steady whilst the kids raced ahead (40zł / £8).
Museum of illusions
A similar museum in Vienna was a highlight, so we headed to this one and, don’t tell Vienna, but this is much better. More space, less people, and some different stuff. Kids enjoyed the upside-down room and the electro ball thing. A room which took left shadows on a wall reminded me of a school trip to the Museum of Film and Photography museum in Bradford, circa 1989. The sepia-lit room was ace and messed with my head. Really nicely designed space, staff were excellent and talked through things at just the right level of detail (145zł / £29).
Time on the river
Strolled around via Wyspa Bielarska (Bielarska Island) and found a very good playground. Popped to a supermarket and picked up some fresh bread, meat and cheese for a picnic lunch (44zł / £8).
Further down the river Zatoka Gondoli where you can hire canoes and boats. Wife and daughter headed out in a canoe for a leisurely half hour paddle (30zł / £6). Daughter and I hired a boat for the most stressful 30 minutes of the year so far; my head and outboard motors don’t get on. Move it left, to go right, right to go left and a throttle that worked backwards. I was an awful driver. Daughter had a cheeky go driving and nailed it first time. Headed back to dry land (45zł / £9).
Afternoon strolls
Spent the rest of the afternoon walking round, dwarf hunting, stopping coffee coffee, snacks. Popped into Katedra greckokatolicka św. Wincentego i św. Jakuba (Cathedral of St. Vincent and St. James) for quick look round. Had mid-afternoon drinks andpierogi and piecuchy (135zł / £27)
None of us were really hungry for tea so had a Maccies (109zł / £22) before back to the Airbnb for some much needed sleep.
Dwarves found: 43 (90 total)
Distance walked: 10 miles (17.5 miles total)
Sunday
I’d asked our Airbnb host to recommended a cafe for breakfast and Jolie in Plac Solny was excellent. The breakfast menu had some good choices (scrambled egg bagels with bacon, and sausages, eggs and potatoes), the juice was super fresh and the coffee was like thick and strong; perfect (300zł / £60).
Zoo
Caught a number 10 tram for a 25 minute journey to get to the Zoo. It was really excellent and huge; the 5 hours we spent exploring weren’t enough. Probably needed another 5 hours. Saw lions, zebras, giraffes, monkeys, wolves, bears, snakes, turtles and more. The hippos, sharks and penguins inside the aquarium were a huge highlight for us all (230zł / £46). Kids enjoyed the tree top adventure playground. It’s well worth a visit.
River Cruise
After a few hours back at the Airbnb we headed back out for an early meal (pizza, again) and then for an evening river cruise. It was a lovely way to end my wife’s birthday and the trip. Super relaxing, we all really enjoyed it (220zł / £44).
Dwarves found: 8 (98 total)
Distance walked: 6 miles (23.5 miles total)
Monday
Our Uber (52zł / £11), reserved the day before, picked us up at 3.45am and drove us to the Airport in plenty of time for our 6am flight. Landed back at East Midlands in the grotty rain, gutted we were home.
Dwarves found: 1 (99 total)
An excellent trip, all round.
