Experience the best of Poznań

Poznań lies on the River Warta in western Poland, roughly halfway between Warsaw and Berlin. The Old Market Square is lined with painted merchants' houses around the Renaissance Town Hall, whose clock sets two mechanical goats butting heads at noon. Ostrów Tumski, an island in the river, was the cradle of the early Polish state under the Piast dynasty, and its cathedral is one of the oldest in the country.

The Imperial Castle, a neo-Romanesque palace built for Kaiser Wilhelm II in the early twentieth century, now serves as a cultural centre. Lake Malta, an artificial lake on the edge of town, has a rowing course and walking paths, and the Citadel Park is a large green space on a former fortress. Gniezno, an early Polish capital, Kórnik Castle with its arboretum, and the Iron Age site of Biskupin are within reach.

On 11 November the city eats St Martin's croissants, crescents filled with white poppy seed paste, and its traditional food includes duck with apples, potato dumplings and pyry z gzikiem, boiled potatoes with quark and chives. Poznań has a young university population and a busy trade fair. Winters are cold and grey, summers are warm, and autumn colours the parks.