Lower Silesia is the part of Poland that doesn’t know it’s supposed to be famous. The castles are real and largely unrestored. The mountains - the Sudetes - are walkable without a guide. The small cities, Jelenia Góra especially, have the bones of something magnificent that nobody has yet discovered and ruined.

Why it works as a weekend

The train from Wrocław to Jelenia Góra takes about two hours. Wrocław is ninety minutes from Warsaw or Kraków by fast train. The loop is genuinely easy.

From Jelenia Góra, the Karkonosze mountains are twenty minutes by bus. Książ castle - the largest in Silesia, partially hollowed out by the Nazis for a project that was never finished - is forty minutes away. Neither requires booking in advance on a weekday.

The language issue

There is almost no English signage once you leave Wrocław. This is a feature, not a problem. Download Google Translate offline for Polish before you go and you’ll be fine. The people are helpful; they just don’t expect you.