Żywiec

Understand

thumb | 300px | Brewed here since 1856 The original village, first documented in 1308, was 2-3 km north down the valley. This site was prone to flooding so in 1448 its inhabitants moved south - they'd be aghast to see it today, deep beneath the waters of Lake Żywiec along with three other villages. The new site acquired a castle and various churches, remaining a small market town with no great mining or textile industry. Swedish troops wrecked it in 1656 but from 1772 Austria was the power in this region, as Poland was carved up. Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895) founded the town's famous brewery in 1856. He also rendered the Austrian army useless by resisting every form of modernisation, laying the seeds of its humiliation in the First World War. This plus the collapse of Imperial Germany and Tsarist Russia created space for Poland to regain its independence in 1918, so toast the Archduke whenever you first sample the local beer - na zdrowie!

The mining and industrial cities to the north had large German populations, and at independence several voted to join Germany not Poland, and the border was re-drawn. No such mix in rural upland Żywiec, and when Germany seized all of Silesia at the onset of the Second World War, they found a 99% Polish population here. They reckoned to adjust that by deporting 95% of the population, exterminating the 4% who were Jewish or otherwise on their death list, and re-settling the area with Germans from further east. This "Action Saybusch" (their …

Get in

By road from Katowice follow S1 motorway south past Bielsko-Biała. Exit onto Highway 946 spur for town centre, but for the brewery stay on S1 until the next interchange 3 km further south.

Hourly regional trains from Katowice take 1 hr 45 min via Tychy, Pszczyna, Czechowice-Dziedzice, Bielsko-Biała, Lodygowice and Pietrzykowice (for lakeside village). They continue south to Ciecina, Milowka, Rajcza and Zwardon, another 50 min. Four trains a day from Warsaw run direct to Katowice and Bielsko-Biała.

is 2 km southwest of town centre. It was renovated in 2018 but remains as tatty and broken-down as before.

JM Bus runs hourly from Bielsko-Biała, taking 50 min via Lipowa.

The bus station is next to the railway station.

Get around

Walk in town centre. Buses ply to the bus and railway stations and the brewery.