Silesian Voivodeship

The Silesian Voivodeship (Polish: Województwo śląskie) is one of the 16 provinces or voivodeships of Poland, in the south of the country bordering the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Much of it is industrial and densely populated, with a total of around 5 million, but there are also scenic rural uplands and mountains. Even the industrial areas are worth visiting, for the mining heritage and the mansions and churches funded by rich industrialists.

Cities

Metropolis GZM

GZM - Górnośląsko-Zagłębiowska Metropolia - is the conurbation of 41 towns around Katowice.

• 1 Katowice is capital of the Silesian Voivodeship. It's a large coal, steel and business centre.
• 2 Chorzów has a large Culture Park along its boundary with Katowice.
• 3 Bytom was a large steel town, now in decline.
• 4 Ruda Śląska is a string of towns with no centre, that Lech Wałęsa famously never visited.
• 5 Zabrze has a coal-mining museum in the underground workings.
• 6 Gliwice is mostly industrial but with a medieval castle.
• 7 Tarnowskie Góry has a historic silver mine listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• 8 Sosnowiec has several old churches, castles and palaces.
• 9 Dąbrowa Górnicza is a large post-industrial city with a museum and old churches.
• 10 Tychy is best known for its brewery, founded in 1629.
• 11 Pszczyna has a palace in 17th century Renaissance style.

Kraków-Częstochowa Upland

A Jurassic limestone ("karstic") landscape, with forests and scenic outcrops with castles perched on top.

• 12 Częstochowa has the shrine of Jasna Góra, a pilgrimage destination.
• 13 Ogrodzieniec has two hilltop castles, one a stone ruin, the other a replica of a 12th century wooden fort.
• 14 Pilica's own castle is a derelict mansion, but Smoleń has a more impressive ruin.

South

Southwest the River Odra cuts through the hills to create a low-level route to the Czech Republic.

South rise the Beskids mountains defining the border with Slovakia.

• 15 Cieszyn is a medieval town right on the Czech border.
• 16 Bielsko-Biała has an attractive market square and Lutheran churches.
• 17 Ustroń is a resort with a history of metal-working.
• 18 Wisła is a large year-round resort.
• 19 Szczyrk is a resort in the next valley.
• 20 Żywiec is where one of Poland's most popular beers is brewed.

Other destinations

• The Beskids are the mountain range along the southern border of Poland, from the Czech Republic in the west to Ukraine in the east. The terrain is seldom much over 1000 m and is protected as a series of parks.
• 1 Auschwitz-Birkenau is just across the boundary into Małopolskie Voivodeship, near the town of Oświęcim, but is easily visited from the Katowice area.

Understand

Coal mine at Świętochłowice near Chorzów

Ślęza means a dismal swampy place and gave its name to a river, and later to the geographical region known in English as Silesia, in Polish as Śląsk (pronounced "Slonsk"), in German as Schlesien, and in Czech as Slezsko. Modern Poland is divided into 16 Provinces or "Voivodeships", and the Silesian Voivodeship described on this page only covers the southern third of that region.

Silesia was part of Poland since that country's foundation in the 10th century, but for a millennium it was often a cockpit of war as rival local duchies or foreign powers grabbed territory that they liked the look of. The area around Katowice was industrial from medieval times, as a string of little forest villages mined coal and metal ores, and dwelt in a fug from their furnaces. But they couldn't mine deep because of flooding, until 17th / 18th century technology enabled a big expansion. Away went the forests as the villages coalesced into sprawling grubby towns. In came an influx of settlers, predominantly German-speaking, and the struggle for profitable territory grew into a feeding frenzy. Poland was carved up and ceased to be a nation: much of Silesia fell to Prussia while the mountainous south was held by Austria, and Sweden and Russia also made brief forays.

Poland was re-born in 1918 and the border was re-drawn: some Silesian towns voted to stay part of Germany, while others joined Czechoslovakia. In 1939 Nazi Germany seized all of Silesia, but the territory was regained in 1945 and the border again re-drawn. The post-war communist regime doubled down on heavy industrial development, but in the 1980s Poland's smokestack economy collapsed along with communism. This has left many post-industrial towns and brownfield areas struggling to re-invent themselves, but has left a rich heritage for visitors to explore.

Talk

Polish is spoken by all. Depending on who you believe, the dialect or language of Silesian is spoken here too. There is also a notable German minority presence in the region with some bi-lingual signage in both languages. As in a large part of western and northern Poland, place names exist in both Polish and German due to the area's history. Many young people study English and German.

Get in

By plane

Katowice (KTW ^IATA) is the principal airport, with budget flights by Wizzair and others.

You could also fly into Kraków (KRK ^IATA), Wrocław (WRO ^IATA) or Ostrava (OSN  ^IATA).

By train

Katowice is the hub, with trains from Gdańsk, Warsaw, Kraków, Berlin, Wrocław, and from Prague, Vienna and Budapest via Ostrava.

A number of local lines connects the towns of the Katowice metropolis and snake up the mountain valleys.

By road

Principal highways are E75 from Gdańsk via Łódź (joined by E67 from Warsaw), E40 from Berlin via Wrocław and continuing east to Kraków and Lviv, and A1 from Brno via Ostrava.

Buses ply these highways though the service is less frequent than the trains. Flixbus is the main inter-city bus line.

Get around

Ogrodzieniec castle

By train is usually the best inter-city option, with frequent services and subsidised fares. An extensive tram network links the towns around Katowice.

Buses serve feeder routes from the stations but are either sparse or slow and roundabout between lowland towns. They're a better option in the southern uplands, such as the spa towns around Bielsko-Biała. A few places such as Ogrodzieniec are tedious to reach by public transport so you need wheels: bike-on-train would work.

See

• Katowice has the biggest range of attractions in all categories, plus the Culture Park to the west just over the boundary into Chorzów.
• Rynek means market-place and is the historic core of several towns. They were all wrecked by warfare and by ugly modern developments but some have been partly restored and pedestrianised - Gliwice is among the successful examples.
• Castles began as wooden hilltop stockades, replaced from the 12th century by stone bastions, then abandoned from the 14th century once better artillery rendered them defenceless. Some were repaired for other use such as barracks or prisons, others were pillaged for their stone, and some were replaced by grand mansions called "castles" but with no defensive function. Most towns have one or more: Ogrodzieniec has a ruined stone castle, and a replica of the earlier wooden fort.
• Mining for coal and metals has scarred this region but left a rich industrial heritage. Especially immersive are the former mines you explore underground - Zabrze has the best.
• Churches and shrines were mostly styled in Baroque in the 17th / 18th century (often by re-modelling an older church) when the population expanded rapidly - best known is the pilgrimage site of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa. They're predominantly Roman Catholic with only a few Orthodox, except in the south which was long under Austrian rule and is Lutheran.

Do

Shrine of Jasna Góra at Częstochowa

• Football: clubs playing soccer in Ekstraklasa, Poland's top tier, are in Częstochowa, Gliwice, Katowice and Zabrze.
• Ice hockey: clubs in Polska Hokej Liga the top tier are in Katowice, Sosnowiec and Tychy.
• Climbing: the limestone crags of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland are a popular area.
• Winter sports: the mountains to the south don't go much over 1000 m so ski runs are short. But they get a good dump of snow most winters so they're family-friendly places for novices and intermediates, and Wisła has a ski jump.

Eat

Silesian cuisine is distinctive. Local specialties include:

• Wodzionka or brołtzupa (literally "bread soup") is soup with garlic and squares of dried rye bread.
• Żur soup is made of soured rye flour and meat.
• Kluski śląskie (Silesian dumplings) are rounded dumplings made of mashed boiled potatoes, finely grated raw potatoes, an egg, grated onion, wheat flour and potato flour; srvd with gravy.
• Szałot is a salad of squares of boiled potatoes, carrots, peas, ham, various sausages, pickled fish, boiled eggs, all bonded with olive oil or mayonnaise.
• Krupniok is a blood sausage made of barley groats and animal blood.
• Żymlok is like krupniok but with bread roll (żymła) instead of groats.
• Knysza is pita bread with meat and lots of cabbage.
• Bejgli is variously concocted from finely ground poppy seeds, raisins, almonds, candied citrus peels, honey, sugar, pudding, and flavoured with rum. Decorated with fingers of crumbling.
• Makówki or moczka is a Christmas Eve dessert, of poppy seeds, gingerbread extract, nuts and dried fruit, strawberry compote and almonds.
• Kopalnioki are hard candies of sugar, anise oil, essence of St John's wort, honey and peppermint. Its black colour comes from charcoal food dye.

Drink

Makówki are served on Christmas Eve

• Beer: Tychy and Żywiec have famous breweries, tours may be available.
• There isn't a vodka-distilling tradition in this region, but the supermarket shelves are groaning under the weight of the stuff.

Stay safe

Usual precautions about safeguarding valuables, and beware traffic.

The mountains are of no dizzy height but deserve your respect in any season, and the weather can change suddenly.

Go next

• East is Małopolskie Province, with glorious Kraków, weird Wieliczka and sombre Auschwitz.
• Northeast is Świętokrzyskie or Holy Cross Province, with medieval Sandomierz.
• North is Łódźkie Province, its main city of Łódź being a re-invented textile town like Manchester.
• Northwest is Opolskie Province, with several medieval and Renaissance small towns.
• West is North Moravia and Silesia in the Czech Republic, with Ostrava and Olomouc its main towns.
• South is Central Slovakia, with the Tatras mountains along the frontier.