I spent eight weeks — the majority of my time in Europe on this trip — wandering through cities that had been part of the Austrian Empire for two or three centuries. It’s pretty astounding, the length and breadth of the territory that was once ruled from Vienna: Most of the Balkan Peninsula, from Slovenia to Romania, plus the Czech lands and the southern sliver of Poland, including Kraków.
So naturally I was curious when I arrived in Poznań, which Prussia snapped up during the Second Partition of Poland in 1793. Known by its German name, Posen, it was part of Prussia, later Germany, until 1918. Would this city look different somehow, given that it was part of the German, rather than Austrian, sphere of influence for so long?
Not really. At least not to my untrained eye. In part, that’s probably because Germans built many of the buildings in the cities of the Austrian Empire, even, surprisingly, in places as far east as Brașov. It’s also possible that after the brief but brutal German re-occupation of Poznań during World War II, with most of the city flattened by Allied bombing, the locals decided not to rebuild the Prussian-era buildings. I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t blame them.
The Poles certainly did a heck of a job restoring Stary Rynek to its former Renaissance glory. The nearby island of Ostrow Tumski, too, a very early Polish royal capital predating Kraków by a couple of centuries, has some impressive refurbished structures.
Ostrów Tumski is a slightly hilly island in the Warta River. As such, it was primo fort real estate in the Middle Ages. No need to dig a moat — nature provided one. Nowadays the river on both sides is mostly green space. I’d love to see some floating restaurants and a picnic scene here à la Prague or Kraków, but it’s not here yet (24 July 2018).
The island is home to the oldest cathedral in Poland, Poznań Cathedral, erected in A.D. 968. The current cathedral has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times over the centuries that it bears no resemblance to the original. But it’s pretty impressive in its own right (24 July 2018).
It’s pretty impressive inside, too (24 July 2018).
And naturally, on the modern pedestrian bridge overlooking the contemporary (2014) visitor center on Ostrów Tumski, local couples have affixed symbols of their undying love (24 July 2018).
No, it’s not the architecture that sets Poznań apart from other cities I’ve visited recently. Rather, it’s how Poland in general, and Poznań more so than Kraków, is a little run-down. That is changing. Like Kazimierz in Kraków, there’s more than the usual amount of construction going on in Poznań. I got the sense that this city is upwardly mobile.
Fancy new offices and apartments are going up (24 July 2018).
But the city’s still got its rough edges. One thing I noticed right off the bat, when my Airbnb host arranged for me to pick up the keys to my rental apartment at the pawnshop downstairs, is just how many pawn brokers there are in Poznań.
There’s a pawnshop, or lombard, on seemingly every block in downtown Poznań. I associate pawnshops with economic distress. If you’re selling (or using as collateral to get a loan) your smartphone, watch, jewelry, or whatever to pay your bills, you are probably downwardly mobile (18 July 2018).
And then there are the many vagabonds, panhandlers, sleeping winos, and staggering drunks you meet all over town. I noticed an uptick in begging and public intoxication as soon as I left tidy Czechia for Poland, and it’s more pronounced in Poznań than in Kraków. In one particularly memorable incident on 24 July 2018, I was walking along a pedestrian street toward Stary Rynek when I caught a glimpse of a disheveled old man carrying a battered, partially full plastic trash bag staggering diagonally across the street toward me. Besides his appearance, another clue to his utter drunkenness was the fact that he was walking away from the exit of the nearest Żabka convenience store, which strongly implied to me that he had just restocked.
It was sort of like one of those moments when you need to pass someone walking toward you on the street, but both of you waver about whether to veer left or right and you end up halting right in front of each other. Only in this case, I veered quickly and decisively right, and, just as swiftly, and without a word, he careened left and plowed into me like a defensive end sacking the quarterback. I don’t like strangers touching me, particularly not unkempt, smelly winos, and — also without saying a word — I extricated myself from his grasp and speed-walked away toward the square, shaking my head in bemusement.
As was the case in Porto, I find a bit of grunginess endearing in a city. I feel like I’m getting into the market before people like me arrive to gentrify it and drive prices up. But I don’t like having to scrutinize carefully everyone in my line of sight so as to avoid awkward encounters with panhandlers. Nor do I want to start putting on a helmet and shoulder pads to cushion the impact in case one of the shuffling drunks pinballing around tackles me.
- Rent: 6.7. Poland is inexpensive; Poznań particularly so. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center is $407.71.
- Walkability: 7. Although Poznań has relatively few fully pedestrianized streets, it has plenty of mostly pedestrianized ones, where I, as a pedestrian, am in the majority. That I like.
And most of the non-pedestrian streets feature crosswalks and walk signals at regular intervals. So the rather aggressive Polish drivers know when it’s their turn and when it’s not (20 July 2018).
- Dating: 9.
- Food: 8.5. Love it. See my Polish food blog post.
- Ambience: 6. Its beautiful main square aside, Poznań looks a little worse for wear. And its newer buildings are a mixed bag.
Plac Wolności is Poznań’s equivalent of Prague’s Wenceslas Square: It’s the heart of the modern city and the site of mass demonstrations. I kind of like the modernist sculpture at the eastern end of it there (20 July 2018).
I’m not sure about the façade of this shopping mall. It looks to me like the Titanic plowed into it from behind (20 July 2018).
I see Prague’s Dancing House straining to emerge from an ugly gray concrete cocoon (18 July 2018).
- Transit: 7. Between my trips from the train station, to the airport, and to and from Wielkopolska National Park (see below), I used public transportation more in Poznań than I have in a while. In my experience, the trams and buses ran like clockwork.
The train and bus stations in Poznań are far enough from the Old Town that hopping aboard a tram to reach them makes a lot of sense (23 July 2018).
- Health care: 4.8. I don’t have this data point for Poznań, so I’m substituting in the number for the nearby, roughly equally large city of Wrocław. The data suggest that, relative to Spain, Portugal, and Czechia, Poland is not a great place to get sick.
- Nature: 9. I’m not talking nice city parks here. Poznań is within a stone’s throw of some honest-to-goodness nature.
Lake Rusałka is a 15- or 20-minute bike ride from Stary Rynek. It’s ringed with walking and running trails and the shoreline of the lake itself is undeveloped and forested all the way around (22 July 2018).
Well OK. There’s one beach with a dock and one or two other small structures. But that’s it (22 July 2018).
Wielkopolska National Park is out in Poznań’s suburbs, about 30 minutes away by tram and commuter rail. It’s free to enter (23 July 2018).
It’s a good place to spot butterflies. And lots of other flies too. I was really glad I wore a hat and sprayed myself silly with insect repellent (23 July 2018).
Wielkopolska National Park has multiple undeveloped lakes of its own, such as Lake Górecki. This is the most popular part of the park, where on a sunny Monday I saw several fellow hikers. But what I enjoyed most about my four-plus hour hike around this park were the more remote trails, where I went as much as an hour and a half without seeing another soul. It’s incredible that all this is so close to a major city and yet so remote (23 July 2018).
The only downside to the trip to Wielkopolska is that I had to walk a considerable distance through the ‘burbs to get to and from the local train stations on my way there and back. I mean, look at this street, with a sidewalk on only one side! So suburban! Although I grew up in the suburbs and I’ve lived most of my life in them, I’ve become a city mouse later in life. When I’m in them now, I feel a little ill at ease, like the driveways and lawnmowers and chain-link fences and home security systems and barking dogs all know I’m an urban interloper who doesn’t belong (23 July 2018).
- Internet: 9.
- Crime: 6.4.
- Language: 3. Polish is a tricky one. Although there are some words that can be easily understood by a native English speaker like me.
Can you guess what “Alkohole” refers to? Why, it’s your friendly neighborhood liquor store. Also, if I ever open my own dive bar, I got dibs on the name “Alkohole” (14 July 2018).
Searching for metered parking? Look no further than “automat parkingowy” (18 July 2018).
- Bikeability: 7. Poznań has an excellent network of bike lanes and shared pedestrian-bike paths.
Poznań has an easy-to-use docked bike-sharing system. I made good use of it (22 July 2018).
You’ve got your designated bike lanes along many of the main streets… (18 July 2018)
…and plenty of shared trails through green spaces, too (22 July 2018).
- Friendliness: 7.
- Pollution: 4.2. Again, substituting Wrocław’s unimpressive number here as a proxy for Poznań. The air seemed fine to me while I was here.