Silesia
Discover Silesia
Introduction
Silesia is the industrial south-west of Poland, a region that has belonged at different times to Poland, Bohemia, Austria and Germany, and whose people speak a dialect distinct enough that many regard it as a language of its own. Coal built the modern province, and the transition away from it is the central fact of its present.
Katowice, the regional capital, has reworked mine buildings and a former colliery into a concert hall, a museum and a conference centre, and the UNESCO-listed Tarnowskie Góry silver mine nearby can be walked and boated through underground. The Nikiszowiec district is an entirely preserved early twentieth-century workers’ settlement in red brick.
The rest of the region is greener than its reputation. Moszna castle, west of Opole, has ninety-nine towers and a facade that looks invented; Wrocław, the historic Silesian capital, is a city of islands and bridges with several hundred small bronze dwarves hidden around its streets. In the south the Beskid mountains run along the Czech and Slovak borders with walking and skiing, and the Jura upland north of Katowice carries a chain of ruined limestone castles known as the Eagles’ Nests. The province is well connected and easy to travel; late spring and early autumn are the pleasant months.