The town is flamboyant with ecclesiastical excess. My wander is an encounter with Romanesque portals,Gothic spires and baroque cupids struggling with outrageous wardrobe malfunctions. Solny Square,the former salt market,is surrounded by cheerful orange and yellow buildings and now hosts the colourful flower market. Along the river is the bar-packed university district.

In other parts of Europe,a town this fine would be overrun by tour groups and stag parties. Its sumptuous architecture would be draped in racks of trinkets and souvenir T-shirts. Yet that evening as I head out to dinner,I’m surrounded by locals.

Polish cuisine is another exceedingly pleasant but largely unpronounceable surprise.Pasztecik szczecinski (deep-fried pie) anddziczyzna(game) aren’t words that trip off the foreigner’s tongue,even though they satisfy the palate. Taking up the linguistic challenge,I order the most garble-worthy dishes: barszcz czerwony (beetroot soup with dumplings) for starters,followed bypieczen wieprzowa (roast pork). Fortunately,waiters in Poland are used to the horrors inflicted upon their language by visitors. My server waiter winces,but the food arrives.

I finish withjablecznik,which turns out to be apple cake. The L has one of those horizontal strokes through it,like Wroclaw itself. Not actually an L at all,then,but worth getting your tongue around in any language.

Brian Johnston travelled as a guest of Collette.