Audioguides Lublin

In 1569, the Sejm met in Lublin and created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most unusual political experiments in European history: a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional republic stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Union of Lublin was signed here, and the city never let go of that sense of significance. The Lublin Castle, with its fourteenth-century keep and its Chapel of the Holy Trinity covered in Byzantine-inflected frescoes from 1418, stands as the clearest evidence of what this corner of Europe once was.

Before the Second World War, Lublin was known as the 'Jewish Oxford' for the reputation of its yeshiva, which drew students from across eastern Europe.

The Nazis built Majdanek on the city's outskirts, and it was liberated in July 1944 while it was still operating. That history presses on the old town without overwhelming it. The Old Town itself is genuinely beautiful, with a medieval street pattern, the Renaissance Crown Tribunal building from 1578, and the Krakow Gate forming the entrance. Comparisons to Krakow are made and they are fair, though Lublin tends to be less polished and more alive for it.