Most of the time, the more unusual, less visited cities are my favourite, so when we spotted flights to Szczecin for May bank holiday weekend I was very excited. As I already love Poland, I thought it was worth giving Szczecin a try, despite barely any information online about things to do in Szczecin-hey, I can always fill that gap with a post anyway right?
For a two night trip, I really wanted to explore the city slowly, have a look in some shops, eat some tasty food and have a couple of cocktails. Spending 48 hours in Szczecin felt the right amount of time to do this and have more of a holiday than a trip, so we booked the flights and started planning our trip.
At a cost of £174 for flights from Liverpool and £100 for centrally located accommodation, Szczecin felt like a good price and I wasn’t expecting to spend a lot of money in the city. It turned out that the whole trip, with a couple of drinks both nights and good food, came in at £530.57 between us, £285 each. That’s absolutely comparable to a weekend in the UK, and if you think about the cost of a few drinks, a meal and the cinema or bowling or similar, Szczecin didn’t cost much more.
Things to do in Szczecin
When I was looking into visiting Szczecin, I didn’t find much content on things to do in Szczecin at all. My usual searches (spending a day in Szczecin, spending 48 hours in Szczecin, things to see in Szczecin) didn’t bring up much. Hopefully, as you’ve found this post, I’ve nailed the SEO on this one and this post now pops up to help if you’re planning a trip to Szczecin. Please do let me know if that’s how you arrived here!
It turns out Szczecin really is a quiet, not very busy city, and definitely not one lots of British tourists are visiting. As it’s so close to the German border, there are more German tourists and that’s cool, but it’s not a must visit city for most people. It’s also worth being aware that all of the shops are closed on Sundays-I did know this, it’s the same for all of Poland, but I’d definitely forgotten.
In terms of things to do in Szczecin, there are a few museums you can visit and the Be Happy museum ranks highest on all of the ’10 best museums’ pages. It looks very similar to the Museum of Sweets and Selfies we went to in Budapest which we enjoyed, but we didn’t feel the need to go to something similar in Szczecin so we gave it a miss. I’d say if you’re in the city and want something fun to do it’ll be a nice way to spend an hour and get some cute photos for Instagram, but it’s really not a reason to visit Szczecin.
Other Szczecin museums you could see are the National Museum, the Museum of Technology and Transport, or the Nautical Museum. Szczecin isn’t a city with a huge number of museums.
The main things we found to do are;
Szczecin’s Red Route-effectively a painted red line you can follow to see a large number of important buildings in the city. This 7km route took us about three hours, with a coffee stop, but you could take longer if you wanted to see some of the buildings on the route in more detail.
The Szczecin sign-along the side of the river, this large sign bearing the city’s name is a cute photo op. It’s a short, fifteen minute walk out of the city past some bars and there are a few food trucks nearby too. Not a must see, but nice to walk to.
The Szczecin ferris wheel is near the Szczecin sign, and I’m sure it has good views over the city, but unfortunately it wasn’t running when we visited, it’s only open June to September usually so we just missed it.
The Cranosauruses are another Szczecin attraction and the tourism board website says that the whole area around the cranes/wheel/sign is full of good coffee and international cuisine. That just wasn’t our experience-there were quite a few closed food stalls, and we ate some chips sat in the rain under a leaky roof, just to make the walk worth it. It was fine, but nothing to write home about.
Is Szczecin a good night out?
We stayed right in the middle of the old town, and around us was very quiet. We did spot a couple of bars including a very nice cocktail bar, 17 Stairs, that we had a couple of drinks in, but the old town is definitely not a party city.
I couldn’t find much online about the rest of the city so I think I can safely say that Szczecin isn’t the city for you if you want nightclubs and late nights.
What is Szczecin like for food?
We’ve been to Poland a few times now and really enjoyed Pierogi, so were looking forward to more. Hilariously, we tried to find a Pierogi place and they were all closed. We ate out for breakfast twice and tea twice and enjoyed all of our food, but we had Ukranian breakfast, Georgian tea and then a coffee and pastry/croque monsieur for breakfast the second day. Our first night’s tea was at Stara Komenda, the old brewery, and I’ll be reviewing it in my next post for you. J had chosen the brewery and was really looking forward to the food as it was well reviewed, so watch this space for that one!
So, IS Szczecin worth visiting?
Honestly, yes and no. If you’re looking for a relaxed, slow couple of days, or an easy day trip from Berlin into Poland, definitely visit Szczecin. But if you want a busy city with lots to do, go for a different Polish city (I can recommend Gdansk, Poznan and Wroclaw) If you’re someone who likes to be on the go all the time, Szczecin will not be for you.
It’s okay to not love everywhere you visit. Most cities I’ve been to, I would go back to-not necessarily deliberately, but if I needed to go via A to get to B, most of the cities I’ve visited previously I’d be happy to do a day or an overnight in again for a connecting flight. Szczecin wouldn’t be one of them (lucky really, as the airport has barely any flights so it wouldn’t come up as an option!)
I didn’t hate the city, I didn’t love it, I don’t have strong feelings either way. I did have a nice time exploring with J, and I’m glad we went to Szczecin overall.
Have you been to Szczecin? What did you think?
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