Szczecin is really mouthful for anyone who doesn’t speak Polish so it’s better known as Stettin to Germans. Stettin is actually a huge city with nearly a thousand years of history, it used to be the largest German port in the Baltic Sea and printed a lot of Bibles. You can travel as far as Hamburg and see Bibles from Stettin printed in the early 20th century being sold in old book stores.
Trains from Berlin to Stettin are a nice trip down memory lane for anyone who has lived in the 1970’s Soviet Bloc. The little diesel trains date back to the East German era with the route passing through stations that haven’t been renovated since reunification. Stettin has a mix of pre-war housing, rebuilt hanseatic architecture, and prefabricated social housing.
The streets of central Stettin are littered with historic gates built by Kaiser Wilhelm on its wide avenues with second-hand Czech trams running along them. My favorite spot is on top of the hill at the Ducal Castle built in the 14th century. This gothic castle was once inhabited by the Pomeranian dukes but is now mostly a government facility. The high vantage point of the castle allows visitors views of the entire port of Stettin from its charming colonnades.
A spanking new modernist philharmonic hall is adjacent to a square shaped like a concrete mound. Inside the mound there is a museum, quite an innovative use of space to conserve public space on the top and create additional indoor space below. The narrow steeples of the philharmonic hall reflect the city’s historical hanseatic status.
By the River Oder, which it shares with Frankfurt and Slubice, the view hasn’t changed since the 1940’s. The wide riverfront promenade is a popular tourist destination with the Stettin National Museum facing the riverfront. The only thing more impressive than the hundred-year-old buildings along the street are the magnificent staircases leading up to them with fountains, statues, and ornaments. A great place to relax after a long visit.
