The cultured Polish city where a beer costs £2.30

With nine universities and some 60,000 students, a night on the town in Lublin is always going to be exciting. The largest city in eastern Poland was last year’s European Youth Capital and in September it was named as one of two European Capitals of Culture for 2029. If that isn’t reason enough to take notice, let’s add that Lublin is an enticingly affordable winter break, with direct flights from the UK from £50 return and a night in a spotless three-star hotel costing around £60 with breakfast. What’s more, it’s got an historic Old Town, a strong Jewish heritage and it’s snowy in winter. Think of a budget Prague.

And the beer? A taster flight of four, including a very quaffable English Pale Ale, is a mere zł25 (£4.88) in the headquarters of Perla, the country’s largest independent brewery. With slatted wood walls and a 30 metre (98ft) zinc-topped bar, the Perlowa Beer House is decidedly cool, but I would have never discovered it without the help of Martin Dalebout, a genial Dutchman who has resided here for a decade and leads tours on themes as varied as Polish cuisine, the Communist era and Nazi death camps.

Our long ladder of the night progresses to Ministertwo Śledzia i Wódki, also known as The Department of Vodka and Herring, where it feels only right to down a shot of the first then devour a plate of the second topped with sour cream and pickles. It’s an invigorating combination that makes me feel more Polish by the minute.

A main course of sourdough soup mined with sliced sausage follows at the packed-out pub U Szweca, or ‘The Shoemakers’ to English speakers, then we have a nightcap at Pijana Wiśnia. This Ukrainian bar chain (‘Drunken Cherry’ in English), founded in 2015, has stormed its way across eastern Europe from Tallinn to Bucharest with the simplest of business models. Minimal food, few seats, bright red lights and glasses of warm cherry liqueur – just what you need come January when the thermometer dive-bombs and there is every chance of snow.

At this point, it seems okay to mention the war – we are just 94 km (54 miles) from the Ukrainian border. “Tourism took a dent following the Russian invasion in 2022,” Martin explains, but Lublin welcomed plenty of visitors this summer. “Travellers should realise the front line is as far away from here as Amsterdam is,” says Krzysztof Raganowicz, president of the Lublin Metropolitan Tourism Organisation which runs the delightfully-named Tourism Inspiration Centre just past the entrance to the Old Town.

With around 70 per cent of its buildings being original, this compact and photogenic jumble of cobbled streets and squares is an enjoyable stroll that funnels me up to a neo-Gothic castle housing an extensive National Museum. In my view it is a good enough reason to jump on a plane here.

A star sight is the restored Holy Trinity Chapel with vivid 15th century Byzantine frescoes that were plastered over when it became a prison in 1820. Equally engrossing is a permanent exhibition installed last year devoted to the Polish artist Tamara de Łempicka. Best known for her dynamic art deco portraits, the 42 works displayed here include subtle abstract paintings from her later years.

Climbing up to the roof of the castle’s Romanesque tower, I savour the 360-degree views over a city that had its golden age in the 16th and 17th centuries. At that time Lublin was a renowned centre of Jewish learning with a yeshiva (school) established in 1515. Poignant memories of this cultural flourishing survive in a small brick-walled cemetery on a hill just outside the old city walls that I visit by requesting the keys from Hotel Ilan, a six-storey building from 1930 that was once a prestigious Talmudic centre where male students from the age of 14 were taught.

Suddenly I am alone in an overgrown graveyard with jumbled and desecrated Jewish tombstones that date back over four centuries and now lie scattered about like broken teeth. As traffic from the modern world rushes by on an adjacent highway, I contemplate the fate of a vibrant community wiped out in the Holocaust. In 1939 42,830 Jews were living in Lublin. Fewer than 300 survived, many of them dying in the Majdanek concentration camp on the city outskirts which is now a state museum.

At times Poland feels like a lawn everyone has trampled across – Tartars, Swedes, Cossacks, Germans, Russians – which is easily done when you see the flat, agricultural plains surrounding Lublin. After boarding a minibus for the 90 minute journey south-east to Zamość, which costs all of zł20 (£3.90), I read that in the 1580s the smartest place to build a fortress city was on level fields as it made inhabitants less vulnerable to artillery bombardment. The result is a small, dazzling and little-known World Heritage Site well worth visiting for at least a night.

“The city’s founder, Jan Zamoskyi, was a Polish nobleman who at his peak owned lands the size of Belgium,” explains Daniel Sabacinksi, a local guide. He leads me into the Rynel Wielki (Great Market) framed with colourfully-painted buildings and a majestic town hall crowned with a tower soaring to 52 metres (170ft).

Enlightened and well travelled, Zamoskyi engaged a Paduan architect, Bernardo Morando, to design a private city that is as a model of Renaissance town planning complete with a neat grid of wide streets and a pair of market squares devoted to life’s essentials, namely wodny (water) and solny (salt).

To stimulate the economy, Greeks, Armenians and Sephardic Jews were invited to set up shop and their legacy lingers. The monumental St Nicholas Church was originally built for the Greek-Russian Orthodox community while in the cellar of the Muzealna restaurant I tuck into an Armenian feast of pork shashlik (grilled kebab) with lavash flatbread. Meanwhile, beneath what is now the stylish Hotel 77, Daniel shows me an underground Jewish mikvah (ritual bathing pool) from the 19th century that was discovered during renovations.

Why has Zamość survived so intact? “In the Second World War it was of little strategic value,” Daniel tells me, adding that at one point the city was earmarked to be renamed Himmlerstadt in honour of the leader of the SS. Given this country’s tough past I find it hard not to wonder what the future will bring, not least because the Ukrainian border lies just 60km (37 miles) east. For now, though, only happiness is on the agenda.

On December 6 an ice-skating rink will open on Rynel Wielki and there will be festive lights with winter beer gardens selling potent lagers for a mere zł12 (£2.33) a half-litre. Meanwhile in Lublin the Christmas celebrations will take place in the expansive Plac Litewski (Lithuanian Square) with a far-less touristy market than in some European cities. As Sir Winston Churchill put it so well in 1939, “the soul of Poland is indestructible”.

How to do it

Get there

Wizz Air flies from London Luton to Lublin from £43 return. Ryanair flies the same route, from £50 return. For more information visit lublintravel.pl.

Where to stay

IBB Grand Hotel Lublin is an elegant 1900 building on the corner of Lithuanian Square – in winter snuggle up in the top-floor ‘Modern’ rooms, doubles from zł425 (£83), including breakfast (ibbhotellublin.com). The high-rise Hampton by Hilton Lublin is a 25 minute, mostly pedestrianised, walk from the Old Town with calm and contemporary rooms. Doubles from zł290 (£57), including breakfast.

In Zamość, Arte Hotel is right by the Town Hall with 17 smart rooms, doubles from zł300 (£58), including breakfast. Hotel 77 is also central with 32 colourful rooms, doubles from zł250 (£49), room only.

Nigel Tisdall was a guest of the Polish National Tourist Office, Lublin Regional Tourist Organisation and Hampton by Hilton Lublin.