I’d heard about Italian renaissance architecture, but I didn’t know anything about the Lublin renaissance. I arrive in Poland’s ninth largest city just as the sun sets. I haven’t really taken a second to look around until I get into my room at Avatary Miasta hotel (doubles from £78 B&B) in the old town’s market square. I drop my bags at the door and run to the window to take in what looks like an Italian piazza.
It’s not what I expected from a lesser-known Polish city: pastel-coloured buildings with ornate white mouldings and impressive pediments facing each other around the old town hall. Strings of fairy lights link the lively restaurants, and I can imagine people enjoying alfresco dinners on summer evenings.
“People are usually surprised by how beautiful it is,” our guide, Krzysztof Raganowicz, says.
Lublin, which is this year’s European Youth Capital, is home to nine universities, with students coming from nearly 110 countries. It is estimated that every fifth resident is a student, and the city prides itself on a year-round calendar of cultural events, festivals, nightlife and food. “Lublin offers a vibrant cultural scene,” says Ukrainian student Anastasiia Sereda.
Students like beer, especially when it comes in at 13 złotys (£2.50) a litre, so we go on a tour of the underground Perłowa Pijalnia Piwa brewery in a former 17th-century monastery, where we learn about the beer-making process and, more importantly, end with a generous tasting session.
The brewery has a 30-metre-long bar under a mirrored ceiling where we sit with Poles and tourists enjoying cocktails at £4.50, and regional cuisine including duck fillet and salad with raspberry vinaigrette, and beef brisket. In summer, the brewery has an outdoor cinema and an open-air restaurant by the water with DJ sets.
Each nook in the old town reveals a new coffee shop. Sylwia Stachyra, a Lublin local and Top Chef: World All-Stars reality show participant, takes us to her favourite coffee spot, Cyngwajs, which has a vintage 1920s interior with gilded ceramics and serves coffee from chemistry-lab-style siphon brewers. Święty Spokók music cafe is one of Sereda’s favourite spots where a glass of pinot grigio costs £2 and cakes are less than £1. “You can also listen to and buy vinyl,” she says.
With nearly 60,000 students, Lublin has a spirited nightlife scene. Dom Kultury hosts techno, trap and R&B DJs (entry less than £5), while Sereda loves the Latino vibe of El Cubano where they have old cars on the dancefloor.
But who needs a club? One morning I see window sills in the old town lined with empty bottles of vodka. Later, Raganowicz and Stachyra take us to a Żabka (a convenience store chain), where they sell their own cheap, delicious vodka in 15 flavours, from cherry to mango. We buy milk and hazelnut vodka and drink it “the Lublin way”, mixing them together on a window ledge and sipping it under an umbrella.
As part of the European City of Youth programme, Lublin is hosting 73 events, from festivals to sports shows. Highlights include the Carnaval Sztukmistrzów (27-30 July), with contemporary circus acts, clowns and acrobats from around the world. In August, Lublin’s creative community gathers to make art in the streets at the Meeting of Styles graffiti festival. And in September, the European Festival of Taste celebrates multiculturalism and Lublin’s culinary heritage with live music, exhibitions and food workshops.
We get a taste of the food in the medieval old town at Restaurante Judeu Mandrágora, a cosy hostel where we enjoy Lublin’s regional flatbread with onions and poppyseeds (cebularz) and garlic dumplings. Stachyra recommends the chic rooftop restaurant 2 PI ER for traditional pierogi dumplings and sausage cooked in beer.
The Centre for Culture offers an eclectic range of exhibits: outside I see a colourful exhibition about Sikhism, while inside are different rooms, some with thought-provoking poetry about racism, others with interactive artworks on mental health, and in the middle is a courtyard where they hold concerts and plays. There is also a Centre for the Meeting of Cultures, which has a roof garden where we watch a nature documentary.
Of course, the city’s latest iteration sits against the backdrop of a much darker history: fewer than 300 of the city’s 43,000 Jewish residents survived the Holocaust. The infamous Majdanek concentration camp was built on the outskirts of the city and is now a free-to-access museum. It is a harrowing experience to stand inside Nazi gas chambers, haunting to see the shoes of so many Jewish prisoners, and sobering to read the inscription in the mausoleum containing their ashes: “Let our fate be a warning to you.”
The more we explore, the clearer it becomes that Lublin has no interest in forgetting the Jewish people who once lived here, but includes them in the windows of buildings, in poems on the city’s walls, and in plaques on the cobblestones. As we walk around Lublin’s National Museum, set in the city’s castle, once used as a Soviet prison, Raganowicz explains how Poland was “liberated” from the Nazis by the Soviet Union, using his fingers as quote marks. For many Poles, 1945 brought a new occupation under a different regime. The country didn’t regain independence until 1989.
“If you smile at strangers, they’ll think you’re crazy,” Raganowicz says after I remark on a certain solemnity in the people I meet. At first it feels unfriendly, but on reflection it seems appropriate. People are helpful and direct, and solemnity makes sense in a country that has barely had three consecutive decades without being invaded over the past 200 years.
It feels important to also mention that the city appears to be very white and, as a brown woman, I sense a lot of eyes on me when walking around. But Thabo Mwanandimai, a Zimbabwean student at Vincent Pol University, says she has found the city “surprisingly good” as a person of colour.
Poland has been named the worst country to be gay in the EU for the fourth year in a row, according to a new report from rights organisation ILGA-Europe, and I don’t seen much trace of Lublin’s LGBTQ+ community. But while exploring contemporary art space Galeria Labirynt, it’s heartening to come across a room whose walls are painted with messages of queer pride, anti-capitalism and unity. Wojtek, a 19-year-old non-binary Lublin native and landscape design student, tells me: “I would say Lublin is more accepting than other parts of the country.”
Just 62 miles from Ukraine’s western border, the people of Lublin cannot escape the seismic shocks of the Russian invasion. The city is a haven for Ukrainians, and Raganowicz says the locals feel a great sense of solidarity with their neighbours.
Despite its heavy history, Lublin has a lot of pride in its European ties: Lithuanian Square is a tree-lined meeting place to honour the 1569 Union of Lublin, which created a Polish–Lithuanian commonwealth that some say was a precursor of today’s EU. Lined with galleries, bars, restaurants, community spaces, a multimedia fountain for light shows and an “I love Lublin” sign, the square is an important cultural hub. One spectacular element of the square is its circular window – the world’s first virtual door – on to Vilnius in Lithuania. We stand in front of the large screen and wave in real-time to Lithuanians.
An hour’s train ride will take you out to Zemborzyce Lake, or as locals call it, “the sea of Lublin”, which has a sandy beach and is lined with a forest. It’s a peaceful place to swim, hire pedal boats and cycle.
Lublin is a beautiful city where renaissance mansions sit next to gothic castles, brutalist shopping malls, techno clubs and cool cafes; a fun and fascinating place to experience Poland’s rich and innovative past, present and future.
This trip was provided by the Polish Tourism Organisation (poland.travel) and the Lublin Metropolitan Tourism Organisation. Accommodation was provided by Hotel Avatary Miasta
