Szczecin – Wrocław of the North

Welcome to Szczecin. The benefit of arriving by night train at this time of year is the chance to watch the sun rise over the city as it sleeps. To the left, the cathedral of St Jacob. Destroyed in the war, this Gothic building served Protestant worshippers from the Reformation until 1945 (with a brief counter-reformational interlude); the ruins were rebuilt in the 1970s. Now a Roman Catholic place of worship. 

Below: view from the top of St Jacob's cathedral tower (you can reach it by lift); sadly, the viewing gallery is not open air, as in Gdańsk. In the distance, Dąbie lake (jezioro Dąbie); the far shore of which marks the boundary of the city of Szczecin. Until 2023, Szczecin was Poland's third-largest city in terms of surface area; today it has slipped to number five. Why? Because in 2023, the boundaries of the cities of Gdańsk and Gdynia were extended right out to the edge of Poland's territorial waters, more than doubling their surface areas.

Left: view into Szczecin's Old Town, dominated by the old town hall Altes Ratthaus (with a double 't'). To the south, the Rynek Sienny ('Haymarket'), to its north, the Rynek Nowy ('Newmarket'). A huge choice of bars, cafés and restaurants.

Architecturally, Szczecin reminds me of Wrocław with so many vistas that I'm often having double-takes and reminding myself which city I'm actually in. 

Below: the relatively new (consecrated in 2011) Orthodox church of St Nicholas. Inside the paintings are fresh, the colours vivid, untarnished as yet by decades of patina.

Just across the road from the Orthodox church, on ulica Teofila Starzyńskiego, a late-19th century German tenement building (part of a long-running series of Polish urban facades).

The late-19th century urban planning of Alte Stettin was influenced by what Haussmann had accomplished in Paris – star squares (circuses) upon which several radial avenues converge; wide tree-lined boulevards and diagonal vistas; and unified tenement blocks with commercial ground floors and decorative facades. Below: Ulica Bolesława Krzywoustego, with trees, trams and tenements. This thoroughfare, 35m wide at this point, conforms to the Haussmannian norm of a grand boulevard (generally over 30m in width); it ends in Plac Zwycięstwa, along with nine other streets.

I have photographed the facade of Szczecin's new post office (built 1905) as the Oberpostdirektion Stettin (Stettin Higher Postal Directorate), a magnificent neo-gothic building completed in 1905, a mere 40 years before this became the seat of the administration of the Dyrekcja Okręgu Poczty Polskiej.

Szczecin is one of Poland's great cities, it's certainly worth a visit. If you love Wrocław, you'll love Szczecin.

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