With its forested hills, its castles and “Swiss-style” villas, and its medieval towns, Lower Silesia feels like a fairytale corner of old Germany “hiding in plain sight” in the heart of modern Europe, says Magdalena Miecznicka in the FT.
Arriving here from the dull plains around Warsaw is like entering a different world. First comes the beautiful old regional capital, Wrocław, and then south of the River Oder, the landscape starts to crumple and settlement becomes sparse.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Your first stop might be Sokołowsko – or Görbersdorf, as it used to be known – a village of “rare beauty” where tall early Modernist villas are overshadowed by the neo-Gothic towers of a 19th century tuberculosis sanatorium, the first in Europe. The film director Krzysztof Kieslowski grew up here, and his archive is housed in Villa Rosa, now a boutique hotel and a meeting place for artists.
From there, it’s an easy hop across the Czech border to Adršpach – a municipality famed for its turquoise lake and thousands of spectacular natural sandstone spires; from there you can travel back into Poland, to the mountain spa town of Miedzygórze, where there are several Arts and Crafts guest houses, including the pleasant Villa Titina.
Nearby is Kłodzko, a “stunning” medieval hilltown; you might visit the 16th century Sarny Castle, now a hotel that hosts concerts and literary events; and Osówka, where you can see the remains of Project Riese, a vast tunnel network constructed by the Nazis, its intended purpose lost to history.
-
Who were the ‘weekend snipers’ of Sarajevo?Under the Radar Italian authorities launch investigation into allegations far-right gun enthusiasts paid to travel to Bosnian capital and shoot civilians ‘for fun’ during the four-year siege
-
A free speech debate is raging over sign language at the White HouseTalking Points The administration has been accused of excluding deaf Americans from press briefings
-
Glinda vs. Elphaba, Jennifer Lawrence vs. postpartum depression and wilderness vs. progress in November moviesthe week recommends This month’s new releases include ‘Wicked: For Good,’ ‘Die My Love’ and ‘Train Dreams’
-
‘Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America’ and ‘Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary’feature The culture divide in small-town Ohio and how the internet usurped dictionaries
-
6 homes with fall foliagefeature An autumnal orange Craftsman, a renovated Greek Revival church and an estate with an orchard
-
Bugonia: ‘deranged, extreme and explosively enjoyable’Talking Point Yorgos Lanthimos’ film stars Emma Stone as a CEO who is kidnapped and accused of being an alien
-
The Revolutionists: a ‘superb and monumental’ bookThe Week Recommends Jason Burke ‘epic’ account of the plane hijackings and kidnappings carried out by extremists in the 1970s
-
Film reviews: ‘Bugonia,’ ‘The Mastermind’ and ‘Nouvelle Vague’feature A kidnapped CEO might only appear to be human, an amateurish art heist goes sideways, and Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ gets a lively homage
-
Book reviews: ‘Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity’ and ‘Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice’feature An examination of humanity in the face of “the Machine” and a posthumous memoir from one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, who recently died by suicide
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago
-
Salted caramel and chocolate tart recipeThe Week Recommends Delicious dessert can be made with any biscuits you fancy
