Cool Vibes on Piotrkowska Street and OFF Piotrkowska in Łódź, Poland

Art Nouveau buildings, an old cinema turned hotel and 19^th-century factory buildings converted into lively pubs and restaurants, these are a few more reasons why I really liked Łódź.

Of course, the drive from Warsaw took longer than we expected (2 ½ hours), so we were hungry and thirsty by the time we arrived in Poland’s third largest city in mid-August.

We quickly dropped off our bags at Cinema Residence (Stare Kino) Hotel and set out in search of food and drink. By this time, it was way after 5 o’clock. Time for a cocktail!

After reading about OFF Piotrkowska, I knew this complex, made up of old brick, 19^th-century factory buildings, would be the perfect place to start. In fact, there were so bars and restaurants here that we saw no need to go elsewhere. These buildings make up the former Ramisch family cotton mill factory that was started in the 1850s in the heart of the city. The mill ended production in 1990, and the buildings fell into disrepair until 2010 when locals breathed new life into them.

Now, you’ll find a revitalized area that reminded me so much of the hipster areas we saw in Berlin. Old factory buildings + bars and restaurants = cool!

We started out with drinks at MITMI Restobar (pronounced ‘Meat Me’), a casual bar/restaurant that featured exposed, raw brick walls and tons of outdoor seating. We also nibbled on an interesting appetizer of savory waffles with blue cheese and roast beef. Strange, but still tasty! Later, we moved onto another nearby restaurant for dinner. We were lucky to even get a seat anywhere as all the restaurants were hopping on the Friday summer night we visited!

And if you’re craving something sweet, there’s even a retro-style metal camper turned into an ice cream parlor. How’s that for hipster creativity?

Now, turning to the daytime, you’ll find ulica Piotrkowska, which splits Łódź into two. The street, just under 5-kilometers long, ranks as the longest pedestrian street in Europe. It is lined with restaurants, stores, beer gardens, pubs and a mix of beautiful neo-renaissance and art nouveau buildings. Many of these ornate buildings reminded me of the ones we saw in Riga, Latvia, recently.

We enjoyed walking up and down ulica Piotrkowska, and I think we almost covered the entire street on foot while we were searching for street art in Łódź. And if you get tired of walking, there are several bike rickshaws available so you can rest your feet.  

Unfortunately, during our holiday weekend visit, ulica Piotrkowska was rather quiet. We even had difficulties trying to find an open café for breakfast. From what I’ve read, I’m sure this street is normally as busy as OFF Piotrkowska was.

So have my recent blog posts tempted you to plan a visit to Łódź yet?

“Turn of the Millennium” walk, from ulica Piotrkowska 98 to 146, is made up of  nearly 13,000 paving blocks with engraved names of well-known and not-so-well-known citizens of Łódź . 

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Cool Street Art in Łódź, Poland

Łódź is a city of contrasts.

Our Polish friends (although Varsovians) wrinkled their noses in disgust when we said we were going to Łódź (which is pronounced like "Woodge"). However, none of them had visited Poland’s third largest city for more than 10 years!

I was shocked!

On our Polish road trip in August, we discovered that Łódź has a pretty side as you walk down ulica Piotrkowska, the longest pedestrian street in Europe. The ugly side rears its head as you wander off the side streets and see dozens and dozens of neglected, old tenement and factory buildings falling into ruins. But then, amidst the good and the ugly, you’ll discover a cool, artsy, hipster vibe to Łódź, which is home to more than 30 gigantic street art murals. This is why we decided to stay a night in Łódź so we could explore it properly.

This is one of my favorite murals located at ul. Pomorska 67 by Spanish artist ARYZ. 

Here’s the Galeria Urban Forms map we used as we walked more than 10 km around the city center trying to find as many murals as we could. In 2009, the Urban Forms Foundation was established to set up permanent street art in Łódź’s public spaces. Since then, artists from Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Spain and Poland have been invited to create street art throughout Łódź. (Here’s a list of the artists.)

We saw 16 out of 35 of the large Urban Forms murals plus a few extra that weren’t on the map. Hope you enjoy this photographic journey through Łódź as much as we did!

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Jewish Cemetery in Łódź: Where Time Stands Still

I stared out at the rows and rows of haunting tombstones at the Jewish Cemetery in Łódź, which was Poland's second-largest Jewish city before World War II.

I wasn’t prepared to feel so sad and devastated about seeing a cemetery where about 160,000 people are buried. But the Jewish history in Poland and in the rest of Eastern Europe is a tragic one.

The Jewish Cemetery on Bracka Street, established in 1892, sits on 40 hectacres (about 100 acres) and seemed enormous to me. In one section of the cemetery called the “Ghetto Field,” there are about 43,000 victims who died while they were living in awful conditions in the Jewish Ghetto in Łódź during WWII. In total, about 90,000 people have been identified, and the cemetery keeps a database of all the names that they have.

Many parts of the cemetery are covered in tall weeds, rambling vines, decaying branches and green moss.

The farther you wander from the main entrance, the more overgrown and wild the cemetery becomes. Fragments of tombstones lay on the greenery-covered earth. The engravings are faded.

I was lost in my own world, taking photos of the crumbling tombstones and continually questioning, how could the Nazi Germans have treated the Jewish people so horrendously?

In the 18 months that we’ve lived in Poland, I’ve read countless fiction and non-fiction books about WWII and Poland. I still cannot understand it. It’s not something I CAN understand.

To me, seeing the Jewish Cemetery in Łódź was almost as poignant as seeing Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in person. I left with tears in my eyes.

Location:

Jewish Cemetery, ulica Bracka 40

Entrance and car park on ulica Zmienna.

Cost: 6 PLN/person (Admission is free on first Sunday every month.)

Website: http://www.jewishlodzcemetery.org

Surprisingly, there were several fancy mausoleums like these located on the right side of the cemetery. I'm assuming these families must still have living relatives since the grounds were so well maintained.

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