Every design for Brzeg

Brzeg stands on the left bank of the Oder, on the raised bank that gave it its name: medieval documents called it Civitas Altae Ripae, the city on the high banks. A trading and fishing settlement at first, it received Magdeburg rights from Duke Henry III the White and was fortified by the end of the thirteenth century.

What marks Brzeg out is its long run as a Piast seat. From the early fourteenth to the late seventeenth century the dynasty ruled from here, and Zamek Piastów Śląskich w Brzegu, now a museum, is the clearest legacy of those centuries. Kościół pw. Świętego Mikołaja rises over the old town, Brama Odrzańska guards the way down to the river, and the ruined Kościół Świętych Apostołów Piotra i Pawła is a quieter reminder of how much has come and gone. The town is sometimes called the garden town, after the houses that spread across its outskirts, and its people have their own name: brzeżanie.

Crossing the Oder and seeing the castle on its high bank is how every brzeżanin knows they are home again.