Wrocław 15th December 2007

Just back from a visit to Wrocław (formerly Breslau), a destination chosen because neither Stacey nor myself had ever visited Poland and this seemed the most interesting city within easy driving distance from here. A pretty good guess, because although I wouldn't want to spend a great deal more time there the picturesque old town and fascinating recent history were well worth investigation.
Some things:

• The moment you cross the Polish border, the road disentegrates and the first 100km of the country is spent bashing the fuck out of your Volvo's suspension.


• Entering Wrocław from the South via a suburb, you're confronted with a huge Russian military cemetary, decrepit and broken, guarded by four rusting T34-85s on low plinths and assorted artillery pieces.


• Wrocław is colder than Berlin right now. We bought some new gloves.


• I had a very cheap yet tasty rack of lamb (lamb ribs- that's a rack isn't it?) with sauerkraut washed-down with a terrible beer called Piasko. I usually like Polish beer. (Cans bought from the supermarket were a drinkable ale-like called Dog In The Fog)


• The city is in the midst of decay/regeneration. It's all very frayed around the edges (bare in mind December is not the best time to see a place) but really it just seems like any busy working city.


• Wrocław was the site of one of the bloodiest seiges/battles at the end of the Second World War. As Breslau, the entire city was forcibly fortified (Festung Breslau) using slave labour, the German equivalent of Dad's Army (presumably not funny) and Hitler Youth. Strategically insignificant, the city nevertheless held-out until after the fall of Berlin, at great cost in human lives and to the fabric of the city itself. (More here)

Images. Captions in the filenames/alt tags. I'm going to reorganise the way I deal with images on this blog soon hopefully.