Ciechocinek Graduation Towers

The teznie at Ciechocinek are three linked wooden structures built between 1824 and 1859, with a combined length of about 1,741 metres and a height of some fifteen metres, and they are the largest of their kind in Europe. The principle is old: brine is pumped to the top and allowed to trickle down through a dense packing of blackthorn twigs, so that water evaporates and the salt concentrates, originally as a step in salt production. What made them a health attraction is the side effect - the air around them carries a fine saline aerosol with iodine and other minerals, and walking in it is used for respiratory conditions, so people stroll and sit in the strip beside them for the air rather than any procedure. There is a walkway along the top of one section. The town around is a nineteenth-century spa with a pump room, flower carpets and a large park.

History

Salt was boiled here as early as the thirteenth century under permission from Konrad I of Masovia, and the brine springs were found again in the second half of the eighteenth century. Jakub Graff, professor at the Mining Academy in Kielce, designed the towers: towers I and II, 648 and 719 metres long, were built in 1824-1828, and in 2017 the towers and salt works, with two parks, were listed as a Historic Monument (Wikipedia, Ciechocinek graduation towers).

What you'll find

• 1,741 metres of graduation tower - the largest in Europe, built 1824-1859.
• Blackthorn packing - brine trickling through twigs to concentrate the salt.
• Saline air - the aerosol people come to breathe, along the strip beside them.
• A walkway on top - a raised route along one section.

When to go

May to September. Half a day.

Before you go

The towers close for maintenance sections at a time. Salt spray marks clothes and glasses. The walkway is ticketed separately. The town is a working spa and busiest with treatment patients rather than tourists.

Nearby

Torun is twenty kilometres north-west; the Vistula runs alongside.

Key facts