Every design for Włocławek

The ducal stronghold of Włocławek was built where the Zgłowiączka meets the Vistula, and by the 12th century boats on both rivers paid tolls at its customs chamber. The town that grew there was the main city of Kuyavia in the Middle Ages and has been the seat of one of Poland's oldest dioceses since the 12th century; its Gothic cathedral is a Historic Monument of Poland. Today it is the third-largest city of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, bordered by the Gostynin-Włocławek Landscape Park, and the main cultural and economic centre of eastern Kuyavia.

The Muzeum Ziemi Kujawskiej i Dobrzyńskiej is a good place to see what that means day to day. Włocławek is a byword in Poland for faience and ketchup, it has the country's largest hydroelectric power plant, and on match days the talk is of Anwil Włocławek, its successful basketball club. The Park imienia Henryka Sienkiewicza and the Rezerwat Kulin give the city its green breathing space.

One detail says it all: a piece of Włocławek faience, the kind gathered in the Skarbiec Fajansu, on a kitchen shelf a long way from the Vistula.