Wroclaw Dwarfs & Segway Tour

Wroclaw, Poland is a delightful city! We came for its history, but also for the dwarf statues. Over 350 of them have been installed around the city, mainly in the tourist areas. In the early 1980s, a university student, protesting the communist government, painted dwarfs on a wall from which the government had removed graffiti, drawing attention to what had previously been there. This started an underground movement, called the Orange Alternative, whose adherents wore comical orange pointed hats to make fun of the communists. By the late 80s, marches began in support of dwarfs. The original Wroclaw statues were a tribute to the Orange Alternative, now they are a city marketing tool. Whatever the reason for their explosion from 36 to 350 in number, it is great fun for both of us to walk around and find them. The dwarfs are about twelve inches tall and made of brass. Here is just a sample of the pictures I took as we found the dwarfs.

We've actually done more here than just look in doorways and around statues for the dwarfs. Wroclaw has a large central market square that is NOT under construction. 

Fountains and statues abound in this area.

Many buildings were bombed during WWII and have been rebuilt in the same style they were in originally. This is a university building and although it had damage from bombing, we could not tell the reconstructed part from the original parts of the building.

Phillip and I have not just been walking the town for the past few days. Yesterday, we did one of my bucket list items: a segway tour. The handle in the above picture is from my segway. The segway tour was so much fun! We will do others in the future. I will say that I was not coordinated enough to use my camera and ride at the same time. The pictures of us on the segways are on my cell phone and they aren't transferring over for me to use in the blog. But, here's a picture of Phillip and his segway at one of our stops. The red brick on the ground is where the original fortifications of Wroclaw were (Napolean was actually the one who tore them down on his way east thru Poland toward Russia.)

Our guide, Martin, was a talkative fellow who knew his history and architecture. A geography lesson for you: Hamburg, Germany is the European city with the most bridges, followed by Amsterdam then Venice. Fourth in Europe for the most bridges in the city is Wroclaw. The Oder River branches, twists, and turns enough that Wroclaw has over 150 bridges. During our tour, we went over several of them, like this one to Cathedral Island. Wroclaw as a city began on this island, because the island settlement could be defended and used for river trade, during the 1200s. 

We rode past many buildings, some never damaged, that were built in the 1700s and 1800s, like this museum building covered in ivy. 

Martin took us on a longer tour than we had booked as we were the only people on the tour! Love those private tours that just happen that way. Instead of a 90-minute Segway tour, he could tell we were interested and having fun, so our tour was over 3 hours. We didn't stop for every dwarf we saw, but if we had stopped and a dwarf was nearby, I dismounted from the segway and snapped a quick picture.

We stayed out until after dark last night, so we were able to see the astronomical clock on one of the five-hundred-year-old buildings as it was lit by streetlamps.

Today, we walked along the Oder River. The entire four-mile walk, except when we diverted to a shopping mall to use a restroom, was in a park setting. 

Outside the Natural History Museum, they had a statue to be used as a chair.

And, we are eating well here. Phillip did not expect his meal yesterday to be quite so much food! 

Tomorrow, we take another train for a three-hour ride to Krakow. I still have more dwarf pictures formatted for this blog, so here you go: