A Day Trip to Wroclaw

When I travel, I love to do day trips to combine multiple destinations. However, my day trip to Wroclaw was an extreme day trip, as I flew there just for the day from Scotland. I found return flights leaving early on a Saturday and returning again that same evening. They were so cheap that I couldn’t resist! I didn’t really know anything about Wroclaw before I booked it, so the only thing I had planned was to do a walking tour then go get some pierogis. My flight landed at half 9 and my return flight was at half 5, so that gave me a good five hours to explore the city. It might not sound like that much time, but I had a fantastic time and really enjoyed my extreme day trip to Wroclaw.

Getting to Wroclaw City Centre

Photo of a screen that says "Payment done. Have a nice trip" with a big green tick. Underneath it says Mennica Polska and has the contactless symbol. — Photo of the screen after paying via a contactless card on the bus.

Once I arrived in Wroclaw, I had to make my way from the airport to the city centre. The airport bus is number 106 and runs roughly every 15 minutes. The fare was just under 5 zloty when I went in November 2024. You are able to pay using a contactless card on the bus. I landed at half past nine, and I was in the city by quarter past ten. For getting the bus back, I got the one at 3pm as I didn’t want to risk getting stuck in traffic.

After getting off the bus, it’s a short walk to the main square. This is where I needed to be for my free walking tour. On the way, you’ll start to notice some of the many dwarves located around the city. The Wroclaw Dwarves are one of the main tourist attractions of the city, and you will find them everywhere!

Wroclaw Free Walking Tour

Photo showing several animal sculptures. You can see a goose with a golden egg, a goat and a pig. — Some of the animal sculptures at Jatki Street.

As I had such limited time, I chose to do a free walking tour at 11am. This way, I would be able to see all the highlights and maximise the time I had. The times for walking tours will vary based on which company you go with and which tour you pick. I did the old town walking tour, although I was tempted by the dwarf walking tour.

Market Square

Photo of the tops of bu8ildings in Wroclaw. Each building has a slightly different shape at the top, and they are all painted bright colours. — The colourful buildings at market square.

The tour starts in the Market Square, where you are introduced to the city and some of the history before moving on to Solny Square. We then made our way to Jatki street, which is the old butcher’s street. It is now a charming little street with artists shops and galleries to visit. At one end is a statue representing all the animals slaughtered on the street. After that, we walked to the old jail which had some prison-themed dwarf statues outside it. We then saw the courtyard at the Ossolineum, which is such a beautiful spot that I definitely wouldn’t have found by myself while wandering.

We then made our way past the University, and some study themed dwarves, to reach the market hall. Along the way we walked along the Wroclaw History Trail which is a series of 20 bronze plaques in the ground commemorating key events in Wroclaw history. While here, our guide also took the time to give us a pronunciation lesson on how to correctly pronounce Wroclaw and a few other key Polish words. At the market hall, we were given some free time to explore and to use the bathrooms if needed.

Cathedral Island

After the market hall, we then walked along the riverbank to make our way to Cathedral Island, which is the oldest part of the city. In the evenings, you can see the streetlamps be lit by a lamplighters, however, as I was just there on a day trip it meant I didn’t have time to watch that. The bridge leading towards the island used to have a lot of the love locks on it. However, those were removed as it was damaging the bridge and now there is a dwarf statue holding bolt cutters cutting off locks.

The walking tour ended at the John the Baptist Cathedral, which is a stunning building and definitely worth going inside.

Wroclaw Dwarves

Photo of a dwarf statue. The dwarf is sitting on the ground, writing a letter. On the right is an ink bottle that says Virtualia Art. — I loved this dwarf writing a letter.

After the walking tour ended, it was time to explore on my own. I wanted to try and find as many dwarves as I could. You can get maps, and I believe there is also an app to help search. However, I found it more fun just wandering and keeping my eyes peeled. You have to look absolutely everywhere, as although many are on the ground, there are also plenty that are higher up on various objects like on benches or even just on a wall somewhere.

In 2001, a statue of a dwarf was built to commemorate an anti-communism movement. In 2005, the first five of the mini dwarf statues were placed and from that point there have been hundreds more added with over 800 statues currently in the city. One thing that I love about the statues is that often they will be related to the area that you’re in. Near the University there will be studying dwarves, there is a lamplighter dwarf on Cathedral island, there are book dwarves near bookshops and so on. I would love to go on a proper tour to learn more about all the dwarves, and I think it’s such a fun way of representing the history of the different areas of the city.

Food

Photo of a bowl containing a meat stew. On the top is watercress. Underneath the bowl is a menu but it's too blurry to read anything, and a small bread roll is next to the bowl. — My delicious lunch – Bigos Wroclaw

My favourite Polish food is pierogis. So, my main food goal when visiting Wroclaw was to find a good place to eat them. However, as part of the tour, our guide recommended trying Bigos, which is a local speciality. It sounded really good, so I found a restaurant called Breslauer near the main square that looked good. The dish is a mix of meat and stewed red cabbage, which was delicious. It was very reasonably priced given how central the restaurant was.

When I first arrived into Wroclaw, I passed a bakery and bought myself a delicious white chocolate and lavender pretzel to eat as my breakfast before I started the walking tour. I liked it so much that on my way to the airport bus, I bought myself several more! One to eat on the plane home, and then another one to eat at home (along with a third one to give to my partner so he could enjoy it too). I loved this so much that I would happily go back to Wroclaw just to eat more of these pretzels. They were from Pan Precel which is a Polish chain with multiple locations, so I definitely recommend keeping an eye out for them!

Extreme Day Trip to Wroclaw Thoughts

Photo of a water fountain in front of a building containing large windows and covered in ivy. The top floor is clear of Ivy and you can make out red columns between each window. — The beautiful courtyard at the Ossolineum

Even though I only had five hours to explore the city, at no point did I ever feel rushed. I was able to enjoy the walking tour and explore on my own before grabbing food. After that, I stiill had time to buy some souvenirs and see more dwarves. As I made my way back to the bus stop, I was able to stop off at the pretzel shop again. There were some things I didn’t get to do on my day trip, like see the lamplighters on Cathedral Island. I would also have loved to visit a museum and eaten pierogis. Still, I managed to see a lot, and loved my trip there. I’ll definitely try and come back again for longer next time I find cheap flights!

Have you taken an extreme day trip before? Where did you go? Do you think five hours was enough time for an extreme day trip to Wroclaw?