Wrocław

Panorama of the Wroclaw market

Wrocław Town Hall

Wrocław in 1890

Holy Cross Church

The National Museum

Salt Market Square

Centennial Hall

Clock

Monument anonymus pedestrian

Old Town

Old tram

University of Wrocław

The water tower

John the Baptist Cathedral

Wrocław's dwarfs

Tenements Hansel and Gretel

Japanese gardens

Wrocław is the largest city in western Poland. It is situated on the River Odra (Oder) in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly 350 kilometres (220 mi) from the Baltic Sea to the south and 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the Sudety Mountains to the north. Wrocław is the historical capital of Silesia and Lower Silesia.
In ancient times at or near Wrocław there was a place called Budorigum. It has been mapped to the ancient Ptolemy map of the years 142-147 AD.

The city of Wrocław originated at the intersection of two trade routes, the Via Regia and the Amber Road. Settlements in the area existed from the 6th century onward, when a Slavic tribe Ślężans settled on the Oder and erected on Ostrów Tumski a gord, which Vratislaus strengthened in the 10th century. The town was first mentioned explicitly in the year 1000 in connection with a founding of a bishopric.
In the 13th century, Wrocław was the political centre of the divided Polish kingdom.[7]

In April 1241, during fearing the First Mongol invasion of Poland the city was abandoned by the inhabitants and burned for strategic reasons. During the battles with the Mongols the Wrocław Castle was defended by Henry II the Pious and was never captured.[8]

After the Mongol invasion the town was partly populated by German settlers who, in the following centuries, would gradually become its dominant ethnic group; the city, however, retained its multi-ethnic character, a reflection of its position as an important trading city on the Via Regia and the Amber Road.
Wrocław is now a unique European city of mixed heritage, with architecture influenced by Bohemian, Austrian and Prussian traditions, such as Silesian Gothic and its Baroque style of court builders of Habsburg Austria (Fischer von Erlach). Wrocław has a number of notable buildings by German modernist architects including the famous Centennial Hall (Hala Stulecia or Jahrhunderthalle) (1911–1913) designed by Max Berg. In 1948, Wrocław organized the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wroc%C5%82aw