Cieszyn

Cieszyn was one town until 1920, when the Olza river through the middle of it became an international border and the western half became Cesky Tesin; both halves still function and the footbridges are walked freely, so the ordinary experience here is crossing between two countries several times in an afternoon. On the castle hill stands the rotunda of St Nicholas, a small round Romanesque chapel of the eleventh century, one of the oldest stone buildings in Poland, and it appears on the reverse of the twenty-zloty note. Beside it is a Gothic tower, all that survives of the Piast castle, and a nineteenth-century hunting lodge by Joseph Kornhausel with a park. The old town has a long sloping market square, a well of three brothers tied to the founding legend, and one of the largest Lutheran churches in the country, the Jesus Church of 1709, a legacy of the Habsburg toleration settlement.

What you actually see

• The rotunda of St Nicholas - eleventh-century, round, and on the twenty-zloty note.
• A town split by a border - footbridges over the Olza to the Czech half.
• The Piast tower - the surviving fragment of the castle on the hill.
• The Jesus Church of 1709 - among the largest Lutheran churches in Poland.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

The rotunda is tiny and entry is limited to small groups. Museums close on Mondays. The Czech half is a separate town with its own opening hours and currency. The market square is steep.

Nearby

Cesky Tesin is across the footbridge; the Beskids rise to the east.