Zulawy Vistula Delta

The Zulawy is the Vistula delta - about seventeen hundred square kilometres of alluvial ground east of Gdansk, of which a substantial part lies below sea level, with the lowest point near Raczki Elblaskie at about 1.8 metres under it, the lowest ground in Poland. It is dry because it is drained: a system of dykes, canals and pumping stations begun by the Teutonic Order in the fourteenth century and developed by Dutch and Frisian settlers, Mennonites among them, brought in from the sixteenth century specifically for their expertise in reclaiming wet ground, and the system has to keep running or the land floods. What that population left is visible in the architecture: arcaded houses with the upper floor carried on wooden posts, Mennonite cemeteries with distinctive headstones, and drainage windmills of which a few survive. The landscape is flat, open, ditched and unlike anywhere else in Poland.

History

The first traces of settlement date from between 2,500 and 1,700 BC, probably short-lived camps for fishing and gathering amber. In the 13th century Slavic and Prussian colonisation brought rapid growth and many of today's villages appeared, and Dutch and German settlers followed; the area passed to Prussia in 1793, and since 1999 it has formed the easternmost part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship (Wikipedia, Vistula Fens).

What you'll find

• Land below sea level - the lowest ground in Poland, at about 1.8 metres under.
• A working drainage system - dykes, canals and pumps that have to keep running.
• Arcaded houses - upper floors on wooden posts, from the Dutch and Mennonite settlers.
• Mennonite cemeteries - distinctive headstones left by a community that has gone.

When to go

April to October. Two days, driving between villages.

Things to know

The landscape is flat and to some eyes monotonous - the interest is what it took to make it. Arcaded houses are scattered and several are derelict. Mennonite cemeteries are overgrown and hard to find. A car is essential.

Nearby

Malbork is south-east; Gdansk is west.

Key facts