Wrocław's Christmas Market fills the Rynek from late November, with wooden stalls, hot drinks and a fairy-tale forest for small kids. Polish kids get their first presents on December 6, Mikołajki, and the big night is Wigilia on Christmas Eve, when dinner waits for the first star. Here's what we checked, from the light trail at Topacz Castle to the Three Kings parade.
Wrocław's big winter market fills the Rynek, the old market square, and the streets around it with wooden stalls, lights and a giant Christmas tree. For kids, the pull is the Bajkowy Lasek (Fairy-Tale Forest) and a carousel shaped like a Christmas tree. Parents browse gifts and warm up at the food and drink huts.
More than a million people came last season, so expect crowds.
Kraina Koni is a Christmas market built around the horses that live at the Partynice racetrack. Between wooden stalls of crafts, decorations and hot drinks, kids can ride ponies, tour the leisure stable to see how the horses are looked after, and ride a Ferris wheel over the lit-up grounds after dark.
There is also a family play zone, live music, and an open stage for young musicians.
Wrocław switches on its Christmas tree in the Rynek, between the Old Town Hall and Plac Solny. The crowd counts down, then the 24-meter tree lights up with 120,000 LEDs and 3,000 silver and gold baubles. A parade of Santas and music fill the square around it.
It suits kids who enjoy a countdown; a toddler who hates crowds may do better on a quieter evening at the market.
Lumina Park is a winter light trail in the wooded grounds of Topacz Castle, just south of Wrocław. This season's theme is a journey through time: a 1.5 km forest path with more than 200 light installations, guided by a character called the Magical Courier of the Ages. Kids walk it after dark, spotting scenes from different eras. It suits families happy with an evening walk outdoors in the cold.
Santa is worn out this year, so three elves with clashing personalities, Fircyk, Pyszałek and Złośnik, start work in his workshop to learn how presents get made. Can they get along long enough to finish before Christmas? The show is pitched at preschoolers. Afterward, kids meet Santa and the elves in a decorated cottage, then join in dance games to round it off.
Before Christmas trees reached Poland, noble families hung a podłaźniczka: a spruce branch hung from the ceiling, decorated with ornaments of paper, nuts and sweet wrappers. At this session of Compendium artisticum, the Pan Tadeusz Museum's Saturday creative studio, kids and grown-ups make old Polish baubles side by side and hear the story of the podłaźniczka. Grandparents are welcome too: the series is built for mixed generations.
A Christmas play where soap bubbles are the stars. Bubbleland has never seen real snow, so Mydlaneczka and Bąbelek, the top students at the Bubble School, try to make some out of bubbles. Master Bulbulas and his crooked mirror get in the way, and kids in the audience call out to help the heroes save Christmas. Expect giant bubbles, stage illusions, music and special effects.
Santa has gone missing, and the audience helps find him. Kids get glowing magic wands and set off with a band of funny elves, meeting Santa from Lapland, a Chinese lion, a blue elephant, two wizards and some penguins along the way.
Expect games, dancing and lots of joining in from the seats. It ends with Santa and the kids conjuring a Christmas tree that runs onto the stage by itself.
Teatr Piasku stages Dickens's A Christmas Carol with actors performing inside scenery that an artist draws live in sand and light. Scrooge's change from a bitter miser to a generous man unfolds in pictures that form and dissolve as the scenes play out.
It suits kids who like watching art being made, and older kids who already know the story will catch the most.
A walking Nativity procession through Wrocław's old town on Epiphany. Costumed kings, angels, shepherds, a lamplighter and a star-bearer lead the crowd, and everyone sings carols.
Families walk with it rather than watch from the curb, and organizers encourage kids to come dressed as one of the characters. It ends with a concert on the Rynek. It is a church-led event, so the carols and message are religious.
A mechanical nativity from the second half of the 19th century, carved by Longin Wittig and enlarged by his son Hermann, in a building at the foot of the Wambierzyce Calvary.
Small, colorful wooden figures move through scenes from the Nativity to the Last Supper, the Holy Family at work and the young Jesus in the temple, plus a coal mine and a village dance.
The Rynek is one of the largest old market squares in Poland, nearly 40,000 square meters laid out in the 13th century and ringed by about 60 painted townhouses. The Gothic Old Town Hall stands in the middle and houses the Museum of Bourgeois Art.
More bronze dwarf statues stand on and around the square than anywhere else in the city, which turns a walk into a hunt for kids.
Wrocław's Christmas Market fills the Rynek from late November, with wooden stalls, hot drinks and a fairy-tale forest for small kids. Polish kids get their first presents on December 6, Mikołajki, and the big night is Wigilia on Christmas Eve, when dinner waits for the first star. Here's what we checked, from the light trail at Topacz Castle to the Three Kings parade.
Wrocław's big winter market fills the Rynek, the old market square, and the streets around it with wooden stalls, lights and a giant Christmas tree. For kids, the pull is the Bajkowy Lasek (Fairy-Tale Forest) and a carousel shaped like a Christmas tree. Parents browse gifts and warm up at the food and drink huts.
More than a million people came last season, so expect crowds.
Kraina Koni is a Christmas market built around the horses that live at the Partynice racetrack. Between wooden stalls of crafts, decorations and hot drinks, kids can ride ponies, tour the leisure stable to see how the horses are looked after, and ride a Ferris wheel over the lit-up grounds after dark.
There is also a family play zone, live music, and an open stage for young musicians.
Wrocław switches on its Christmas tree in the Rynek, between the Old Town Hall and Plac Solny. The crowd counts down, then the 24-meter tree lights up with 120,000 LEDs and 3,000 silver and gold baubles. A parade of Santas and music fill the square around it.
It suits kids who enjoy a countdown; a toddler who hates crowds may do better on a quieter evening at the market.
Lumina Park is a winter light trail in the wooded grounds of Topacz Castle, just south of Wrocław. This season's theme is a journey through time: a 1.5 km forest path with more than 200 light installations, guided by a character called the Magical Courier of the Ages. Kids walk it after dark, spotting scenes from different eras. It suits families happy with an evening walk outdoors in the cold.
Santa is worn out this year, so three elves with clashing personalities, Fircyk, Pyszałek and Złośnik, start work in his workshop to learn how presents get made. Can they get along long enough to finish before Christmas? The show is pitched at preschoolers. Afterward, kids meet Santa and the elves in a decorated cottage, then join in dance games to round it off.
Before Christmas trees reached Poland, noble families hung a podłaźniczka: a spruce branch hung from the ceiling, decorated with ornaments of paper, nuts and sweet wrappers. At this session of Compendium artisticum, the Pan Tadeusz Museum's Saturday creative studio, kids and grown-ups make old Polish baubles side by side and hear the story of the podłaźniczka. Grandparents are welcome too: the series is built for mixed generations.
A Christmas play where soap bubbles are the stars. Bubbleland has never seen real snow, so Mydlaneczka and Bąbelek, the top students at the Bubble School, try to make some out of bubbles. Master Bulbulas and his crooked mirror get in the way, and kids in the audience call out to help the heroes save Christmas. Expect giant bubbles, stage illusions, music and special effects.
Santa has gone missing, and the audience helps find him. Kids get glowing magic wands and set off with a band of funny elves, meeting Santa from Lapland, a Chinese lion, a blue elephant, two wizards and some penguins along the way.
Expect games, dancing and lots of joining in from the seats. It ends with Santa and the kids conjuring a Christmas tree that runs onto the stage by itself.
Teatr Piasku stages Dickens's A Christmas Carol with actors performing inside scenery that an artist draws live in sand and light. Scrooge's change from a bitter miser to a generous man unfolds in pictures that form and dissolve as the scenes play out.
It suits kids who like watching art being made, and older kids who already know the story will catch the most.
A walking Nativity procession through Wrocław's old town on Epiphany. Costumed kings, angels, shepherds, a lamplighter and a star-bearer lead the crowd, and everyone sings carols.
Families walk with it rather than watch from the curb, and organizers encourage kids to come dressed as one of the characters. It ends with a concert on the Rynek. It is a church-led event, so the carols and message are religious.
A mechanical nativity from the second half of the 19th century, carved by Longin Wittig and enlarged by his son Hermann, in a building at the foot of the Wambierzyce Calvary.
Small, colorful wooden figures move through scenes from the Nativity to the Last Supper, the Holy Family at work and the young Jesus in the temple, plus a coal mine and a village dance.
The Rynek is one of the largest old market squares in Poland, nearly 40,000 square meters laid out in the 13th century and ringed by about 60 painted townhouses. The Gothic Old Town Hall stands in the middle and houses the Museum of Bourgeois Art.
More bronze dwarf statues stand on and around the square than anywhere else in the city, which turns a walk into a hunt for kids.
