Karpacz

The high valleys of the Karkonosze were long a forested border between Silesia and Bohemia, visited only by prospectors, including Walloon gold-panners, in the 12th and 13th centuries. Permanent settlement began after a flood in 1412 destroyed the nearby village of Broniów and its people moved up into the valley; their settlement, now the district of Płóczki, was first recorded in 1418, and silver and lead were mined there around 1500. Krummhübel itself appears in 1599 as a settlement of 25 holdings. During the Thirty Years' War, Protestants from Bohemia settled here, and in 1742 the area passed with Silesia to Prussia.

In the 19th century the village turned to visitors. In 1842 a medieval wooden church from Vang in Norway, brought to Prussia by King Frederick William IV, was re-erected in the upper village and consecrated in 1844. The railway arrived in 1895, and Krummhübel became a resort drawing guests from as far as Berlin, including members of the Prussian royal family.

In 1945 the area became part of Poland and the German population was expelled by 1947, replaced by Poles, many of them from the eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union. The new authorities first proposed other names; Karpacz was adopted in 1946, and the town received its charter in 1959. Passenger trains stopped in 2000, the old station became a toy museum in 2012, and trains returned in June 2025. Since 2020 Karpacz has hosted the annual Economic Forum.

Karpacz is a resort town first, and its culture is that of the mountains: hiking in summer, skiing in winter and a long tradition of ski jumping. Since 2003 the town has also hosted the Lawina, an international walking and running race from Śnieżka down to the Samotnia hut. The wooden Samotnia and Strzecha Akademicka huts above the town, the second dating from 1907, are protected historic buildings and part of the walking culture of the range.

The town's appearance still reflects its German past, with wooden-decorated villas, guesthouses and two fine churches, among them the Norwegian stave church, which keeps a Lutheran congregation in a largely Catholic country. Since 2020 the Economic Forum has brought politicians and business leaders from across Central and Eastern Europe to the town each September. Smaller institutions keep the town's own story: the Museum of Sport and Tourism records the history of walking and skiing in the range, and the Museum of Toys, founded in 1995 from the collection of Henryk Tomaszewski, has filled the old railway station since 2012.

Karpacz is small: about 4,200 people lived in the town at the end of 2023. Almost the whole economy depends on tourism — hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, ski lifts and shops — and the population is outnumbered by visitors in the busy seasons, when the main streets fill and parking runs short.

The town is spread out along the slope rather than around a square. The lower town along Konstytucji 3 Maja and Karkonoska is the commercial centre, while houses and guesthouses climb towards Karpacz Górny. A bypass now takes through traffic away from the main street, which has become a one-way zone shared with pedestrians, and a town bus links the lower and upper parts.

The return of passenger trains from Jelenia Góra in 2025, after 25 years without them, gave the town a rail link again. The rhythm of the year follows the seasons: winter ski weeks and summer holidays are busy, while late autumn and early spring are quiet.

Karpacz eats like the rest of Poland, with a mountain appetite. Restaurants and snack bars along the main street serve Polish home cooking: pierogi, filled dumplings with potato and curd cheese, meat, or cabbage and mushroom; żurek, a sour rye soup with sausage and egg; bigos, a stew of various chopped meats with sauerkraut and fresh cabbage; and kotlet schabowy, a breaded pork cutlet with potatoes. Long-established places such as Bar Wrzos keep to this traditional fare.

Traditional dishes of Lower Silesia include śląskie niebo, pork with dried fruits and spices, and Likier Karkonoski is a Polish herbal liqueur similar to Echt Stonsdorfer, now produced in Germany. Polish sweets such as pączki, Polish doughnuts, and sernik, the cheesecake, are standard, and one café in the town has been serving cakes and fruit milk drinks since the 1970s. Vodka and beer are the usual drinks, and small vineyards in Silesia produce local wine.