Brzeziny: Discover the city’s history and trails

The city of Brzeziny has a history of its own, while the surrounding Brzeziński County provides the landscape setting for the wider region. In the city, the medieval street plan and churches dating from several centuries shape its historic character. Across Brzeziński County, river valleys, protected areas and regional trails form part of the landscape. If you are looking for a holiday apartment in Brzeziny, you can decide whether the city’s history or longer trails in the region will be the focus of your days away.

Brzeziny as a historic cloth-making town

Brzeziny enjoyed a Renaissance heyday in the 16th century, thanks in particular to cloth-making and brewing. The city lay on an important trade route from Wielkopolska and Kujawy to Kraków and Ruthenia. Records for 1565 list 460 craftsmen and 30 tavern keepers there. In the second half of the 16th century, with more than 300 master cloth-makers, Brzeziny was the largest and best-known cloth-production centre in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The trade route, workshops and taverns provide a concrete context for the city’s history and help explain why the crafts of the time were so closely connected with urban life.

Churches, market square and city park

The Gothic parish church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was built in the 14th century in the oldest part of the city. The church includes the Lasocki Chapel, which dates from the 14th or 15th century. Another historic landmark is the Baroque Church of the Holy Spirit, built in 1750 by Józef Lasocki, the owner of the city at the time. The Church of St Anne dates from 1719; its sacristy dates to the 18th century. The Church of St Francis of Assisi, built in the early 18th century, is also part of the cityscape.

Brzeziny’s market square, now Plac Jana Pawła II, has a medieval layout. The city park was established after 1945 along ul. Piłsudskiego. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Lasocki family’s English-style garden stood on this site. The park includes a glacial city pond that is about 10,000 years old; its island was probably built up artificially. Alongside the churches, visitors interested in the town’s development can also find traces of earlier urban planning and garden history.

The Muzeum Regionalne w Brzezinach is housed in a Neo-Gothic palace. Its exhibition “Zaginione miasto” explores the legend of historic Brzeziny as “Mały Kraków” (“Little Kraków”). This local story, preserved in the city’s memory, complements the tangible history of trade and cloth-making.

Landscape and trails in Brzeziński County

Across Brzeziński County, the valleys of the Mroga and Mrożyca rivers are among the landscape’s highlights. Areas and features under legal protection cover 55 percent of the county. Łódź Hills Landscape Park covers its western part, including the city of Brzeziny and the Brzeziny and Dmosin municipalities. The Mroga and Mrożyca Protected Landscape Area covers the municipalities of Brzeziny, Dmosin and Rogów; the Górna Mrożyca Natural and Landscape Complex extends across the Brzeziny municipality. These details relate to the wider regional setting.

A green trail in the landscape park is described as a walking route: before crossing a river, you can follow a connecting path to Brzeziny. A longer cycling route is about 69 kilometres long and passes through Brzeziny, Paprotnia, Las Wiączyński, Byszewy, Skoszewy, Las Janinowski and Polik before returning to Brzeziny. The two routes differ mainly in their course: one follows a connecting path to Brzeziny, while the other takes in several places on a longer loop. Another regional route, the recreational trail “Muzeum w przestrzeni – wielokulturowe korzenie regionu łódzkiego,” runs from Stare Koluszki via Rochna and Tworzyjanki to Brzeziny.

Historic architecture elsewhere in the region offers a different perspective. The Żywy Skansen – Centrum Folkloru Polskiego in Nagawki, in Dmosin municipality, houses a wooden cottage dating from the second half of the 19th century. The Rogowska Kolej Dojazdowa is a narrow-gauge railway dating from 1914. Your preferred focus can therefore be a useful starting point when searching for a holiday apartment: city history and historic buildings in Brzeziny, or trails and other cultural sites in the surrounding region.

Discover more destinations: Przecław, Witkowice, Brzeziny, Dmosin, Zalesie, Nowostawy Dolne, Zduńska, Pertikau.

Go to the regional travel overview: Lodz.