Green Velo

The Green Velo Trail that runs along the Pasłęka River leads to the town of Braniewo, the oldest town of the region with 18,300 residents, which was granted town privileges in 1254. The Baroque church of the Holy Cross, built at the beginning of the 18th century, stands near the town’s border and the river.

Braniewo used to be a sea port, part of the Hanseatic League, a centre of education and literature, but currently only a yacht pier with tourist facilities can be found there. Jesuits, invited to Poland by Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, settled here in 1565. They established a school in the town – Collegium Hosianum. After the Society of Jesus was suppressed, the school was turned into Gymnasium Academicum, later renamed Lyceum Hosianum. In 1912 it became a State Academy.

In the course of the World War II the town lost many valuable monuments. Some of the most important were rebuilt. The town’s skyline is dominated by the Gothic Church of St Catherine, erected in the 14th century and rebuilt from ruins in the 1980s. The old moat houses a botanical garden and a zoo. A Baroque House of Converts was built outside the Old Town in the 18th century, it currently houses a library. A large war cemetery of the Red Army soldiers fallen in 1945 is located near the road to Frombork. There is a railway border crossing with Russia, and in the nearby towns of Grzechotki and Gronowo are road border crossings.