Places with character
a bronze dog from an animated series beside an egg-shaped fountain by the Biała River
Places with character
a medieval Old Town square with townhouses, a fountain with Neptune and the relics of a well
Places with character
the former market square of Biała with the Under the Frogs tenement house, a fountain and cartoon monuments
Places with character
the main square of Bielsko-Biała, known as Pigal, with a fountain and the Sułkowski castle
Places with character
Neo-Renaissance town hall from 1897 and former cloth factories in the centre of Biała
Places with character
former New Market Square of Biała with Art Nouveau tenement houses and the Pod Orłem hotel
Places with character
former Lower Market Square of Bielsko with Art Nouveau townhouses on the site of the first dye works and cloth mills
Places with character
heart of Evangelical Bielsko Zion with the Church of the Saviour and the Luther monument of 1900
Atmospheric places in Bielsko-Biała: the Old Town market, Plac Chrobrego with the Sułkowski Castle, the Lutheran Zion and the Reksio monument.
The eight places are mostly squares that show how two towns, Bielsko and Biała, became one. You can walk them all, because they lie in the city centre.
The heart is the Market Square, a rectangle of about eighty by sixty metres on the Town Hill. Its shape was laid out at the town's founding in the early fourteenth century, and the buildings are mostly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tenements, with a Neptune fountain and exposed archaeological remains.
To the south lies Plac Bolesława Chrobrego, known as Pigal. The Sułkowski princes' castle closes it, and the granite and basalt paving is free of traffic. You can read about the castle itself in the article from stronghold to museum.
Across the river, Biała began. Plac Wojska Polskiego was its market square from 1723, now fully pedestrian after reconstruction, with a frog fountain and the Art Nouveau Pod Żabami tenement. Narrow Plac Wolności is the former New Market of the late eighteenth century, lined with buildings from several eras.
Plac Ratuszowy is marked by the neo-Renaissance town hall of 1897, with former cloth factories beside it, now offices of the city administration. A city park begins next to it. Plac Franciszka Smolki is the former Lower Market, where a dye works operated from 1720 and Bielsko's textile industry began; today Art Nouveau tenements surround it.
Plac Marcina Lutra is the centre of the Lutheran quarter known as the Bielsko Zion, with the Church of the Saviour and the only monument to Martin Luther in Poland. The name dates from 1782, from the first service after the Patent of Toleration.
Families will like the Reksio monument: the dog from the cartoon made at the local animation studio stands as a bronze fountain by the river, on a trail of cartoon monuments. Read more in the article on the city of cartoons.
The picture is completed by historic sites in Bielsko-Biała and museums in Bielsko-Biała. Everything about the city is gathered under Bielsko-Biała. Squares and corners of a similar mood elsewhere are collected in atmospheric places in Silesia.
The Market Square on the Town Hill, laid out at the town's founding in the early fourteenth century.
In the centre, on a square between 11 Listopada and Stojałowskiego streets, by the Biała river.
The popular name of Plac Bolesława Chrobrego, the central square with the Sułkowski Castle.
On Plac Marcina Lutra, by the Church of the Saviour. It is the only such monument in Poland.
