Every design for Leszno

Step out of the Kościół pw. Świętego Krzyża and you are standing in a town that once ranked, by royal privilege, alongside Kraków, Gdańsk and Warsaw. Leszno was the private seat of the Leszczyński family, who took their very name from it, and later of the Sułkowskis; under King Stanisław Leszczyński it grew into one of the great economic and cultural centres of Greater Poland. Protestants of the Unity of the Brethren, expelled from Bohemia, settled here at the family's invitation, weavers from Silesia followed, and a printing house turned out books in Polish, Czech and Latin.

What lingers is a sense of a place that made room for newcomers – scholars, refugees, craftsmen – and was the richer for it. The Baroque landmarks the period left behind, among them the Kościół pw. Świętego Mikołaja and the Kościół pw. Najświętszej Maryi Panny Wniebowziętej, still set the tone of the centre. Today the town sits halfway between Poznań and Wrocław, draws tens of thousands to its air show and lives for Unia Leszno, one of the most successful speedway clubs around.

Grow up here and the map holds it all: the churches you walked past, the roar from the track, the station you left from.