Wroclaw – 4

Excerpt from the new book about visiting Poland and The Baltics.

To the north of the Old Town is the University Quarter which stretches to the River Oder. This quarter contains the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, built by The Jesuits as part of the university in the late 17th-century on the site of the former Piast castle. Part of the castle structure can still be seen in the northern sacristy. The interior is painted to imitate marble and gilt and is very well preserved. Most of the furnishings are original.

The most famous attraction in the whole of Wroclaw is a beautiful Polish panoramic painting inside an ugly Soviet-style concrete pavilion – perhaps a metaphor for the subjugation of Poland by the Soviet Union. The painting is called the Panorama of Raclawice, 15 metres high and 114 metres long. It depicts a Polish victory over The Russians on 4th April 1794. The forces of Tadeusz Kosciuszko won the day in their independence fight against the Tsarist forces of General Alexander Tormasov, though it wasn’t to last as the Russians soon defeated the Polish Armies.