Places with character
a medieval market square with a recreated sleeping lion and a church from the 13th century
Places with character
Places with character
square in the centre of Bytom on the site of demolished tenement houses, now beside the Agora shopping centre
Places with character
former Kaiserplatz with buildings from the turn of the century, a clock tower and a revitalised square
Places with character
a square north of the Bytom Market Square, on the site of a synagogue burned down in 1938
Atmospheric places in Bytom: a market square with a sleeping lion, city-centre squares with tenements and civic buildings, and a former dolomite quarry.
Bytom has a city centre where the former scale of the town in the late nineteenth century is still visible, though altered by war and later demolition. The five places here are four squares and a quarry, so this is mostly space for an unhurried walk looking at facades.
Best from the Market Square in Bytom, a medieval square in the city centre. It was originally a square in shape, but after 1945 it doubled in size and is now a clear rectangle. It is adorned by a sleeping lion, a fountain and old townhouses, and in 2009 it was picked as one of seven architectural wonders of the voivodeship. A tram line crossed it in the later decades of the 1800s.
North of the market lies Plac Grunwaldzki. Its middle is a green square with benches and a sundial, and several prewar buildings survive around it. A plaque here commemorates the former synagogue. The development of this land is dated to the eleventh century, and in the thirteenth century a castle of the Bytom Piasts is said to have stood here.
Gen. Władysław Sikorski Square lies about three hundred metres south of the market. It was laid out in the 1870s as the Imperial Square, and around it rose, one after another, a gymnasium, the Reichsbank, the Municipal Theatre with its concert house and a Realschule. It suits those who like to read a city through its public architecture.
The very centre belongs to Plac Tadeusza Kościuszki, a former boulevard linking the town with the railway. It owes its importance to two stations, opened in 1869 and 1872, with Dworcowa street leading from one of them to the square. Richly decorated four-storey tenements with hotels, shops and restaurants rose here, and a fountain stood in the middle. Many were demolished in the 1970s and 1980s, which changed the look of the square.
The Blachówka Quarry is a former open-cast dolomite mine in Bytom-Sucha Góra and in Bobrowniki, part of Tarnowskie Góry. Digging went on from 1856 until the 1990s, at first for iron ore and later for dolomite, shipped to the Julia ironworks in Bytom and the Hermina ironworks in Gliwice. The site is not open to tourists, so it is more an industrial curiosity than a walking destination.
After the squares, look at other addresses in town: the attractions of Bytom, and along the way its monuments, churches and monasteries and industrial places. For similar spots elsewhere, open atmospheric places in Silesia.
A sleeping lion, a fountain and old townhouses. In 2009 it was counted among seven architectural wonders of the voivodeship.
About three hundred metres to the south.
No, the quarry is closed to tourists. Digging there lasted from 1856 until the 1990s.
The Market Square, Plac Kościuszki, Plac Grunwaldzki north of the market and Sikorski Square to the south of it.
