Polish Pottery Shopping Guide: Tips for Finding the Perfect Pieces
I was so excited (I mean I still am) about all of the travel possibilities when we learned we were moving to Germany. I learned from our first bout overseas that it is often significantly easier and cheaper to fly to certain places when you aren’t living in the United States. Plus, not having to deal with jetlag is always a huge win.
Despite all of this excitement, I didn’t spend a lot of time pinpointing exactly where I wanted to go once we were living in Europe. Obviously, I want to see and do it all, but it’s frankly just not possible (time is such a limiting little bitch). One thing I did tell myself is that if I could, I would say yes to whatever opportunities presented themselves. And that’s how I ended up going on a Polish pottery road trip.
For those unaware (like I was prior to this trip), Poland is known for their beautiful, hand-painted pottery. It is possible to buy this pottery online, and it costs a small fortune. Go on, I’ll wait while you Google it. Even though it can be costly to buy online, it is significantly less expensive to buy in Poland, specifically in Bolesławiec, the town of about 40,000 residents where all Polish pottery is made.
My friend, who also lives in Germany, loves Polish pottery and wanted to capitalize on her time abroad by picking up some more dishes before they moved back stateside. Graciously, she invited me to come along and even though Poland wasn’t really a country I had thought about visiting, I decided to carpe that diem and packed my bags!
Since the drive (yes, we drove since it’s in the middle of nowhere and so we could have enough space to bring everything back) to Poland was about eight hours one way, she added a stop in Wrocław with an electric car cultural tour. We arrived in Wrocław just in time for dinner at Whiskey in the Jar and quick walk around the Salt Market Square, which is where our hotel was located. The chilly winter air had already arrived in Poland, even though it was the beginning of October, so I was thankful that I had packed a bunch of sweaters.
The next morning we embarked on our electric car tour with Best City Tours, stopping at a convenience store first so we could get a walking around vodka. Fun fact: Poland (or at least Wrocław) is one of the few European cities we’ve visited where it’s illegal to drink in the street. Our ever helpful tour guide decided to tell us this fact after we had been taking pulls all day.
On our tour, I learned my first hard lesson of living in Europe—bring the freaking good camera with you! Always. Like I said before, Poland wasn’t really on my radar, so I stupidly left for the trip with only my phone.
If you travel to Wrocław, I highly recommend this tour. Our guide was funny and I feel like we got to see and learn so much about the city in a short amount of time. Some of my favorite parts were:
The 24-hour flower market in Salt Market Square, making it impossible for anyone to forget flowers for any occasion.
Spiż Microbrewery and Restaurant where we had amazing beers and local cuisine after the tour.
The Noodle Clock, which tolls its bells 15 minutes after the rest of the clock towers of Wrocław. So if you put your noodles on at the top of the hour, the Noodle Clock tells you when it’s time to take them off.
All of the churches of Cathedral Island, specifically the lion statue outside of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The artist had never seen a lion before and made it based off of a description… and it shows.
The view of Wrocław from the top of Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
Jatki, a set of bronze animal statues in memorial to slaughtered animals on the historic butcher street.
The architecture of the Hansel and Gretel buildings.
The doors of the university and the gnome mocking the statue in center courtyard.
One of my favorite parts of the city were the gnomes. Wrocław has more than 400 (and growing) tiny gnome statues sprinkled throughout the city. Their origin is tied to the Orange Alternative, the anti-Soviet resistance movement of the 80s. It first became a community art project with Papa Dwarf, who was erected in 2001 on the street where Orange Alternative members gathered. Now, businesses will commission the artist, Tomasz Moczek, to build unique mini statues related to their services or products. While there is an official map that you can download to see all of the gnomes, we had much more fun walking around and counting how many we could find.
After our afternoon wandering around Wrocław, we loaded up in the car and made our way to Bolesławiec, arriving just in time for dinner. While Wrocław had a lot to see and do, Bolesławiec was much smaller so we were all glad that we spent most of the day in Wrocław.
Our main priority in Bolesławiec was to visit as many Polish pottery shops as possible. Over dinner, we mapped out a full day of shopping, trying to group together shops that were close to each other. We left our hotel around 8 a.m. and were shopping until about 5 p.m., stopping for an amazing (and cheap!) lunch of pierogies at Dobra Pierogarnia. Below are all of the stores we visited, including general thoughts our group had about each. They are listed in the order that we visited if you wanted to map out a similar day.
Ceramika Millena
Millena was a small studio, but my favorite part was that you could see the employees painting the pottery while you shopped. I didn’t end up buying anything here since it was the first place we stopped and I was pretty sure I was only buying a serving platter. This was prior to my friend and I have “the talk” about pottery.
Ceramika Artystyczna Irena
Traveling to Irena’s was a journey. We literally drove off road through a bunch of farms almost the entire way from Millena. I don’t know if we went at a weird time, but the shop was definitely in a shed next to a bunch of angry geese. I found a couple of cute dishes I liked here and asked my friend which one I should get. That’s when we had “the talk” that I should just get them all if I really liked them, because they are so versatile and can be used so many ways. She also mentioned that I would leave Poland wishing I had purchased more pieces. That said, the most unique pieces and some of my favorites from our trip are from Irena’s. Also, my friend was 100 percent correct. I use my dishes every single day, and I’m trying to plan a return trip since I didn’t get enough.
The only downside for Irena’s was that their credit card machine was broken. Unlike Germany, Poland had been pretty friendly so far with credit cards, so we hadn’t had to pay cash for anything. Luckily, they took Euro since we hadn’t converted any to złoty (the Polish currency), but the exchange rate wasn’t exactly favorable. No regrets. I like what I got here and would purchase again.
Manufacture sp.j. Factory Stoneware
Manfaktura is one of the biggest Polish pottery outlets. If you own Polish pottery, it’s probably from here as their online presence is massive. My friend bought a bulk of her items here, and I wish I would have gotten more from this shop.
Another benefit to buying pottery in Poland is that all of the pieces are GAT 1 or 2. GAT scores indicate how strong the pottery is and the level of imperfections it has. GAT 1 is the most durable and can be put in the oven, microwave and dishwasher. GAT 3 and 4 are decorative only.
If you’re short on time or don’t want to drive around all day, I highly recommend putting Manfaktura on your list.
Ceramika Henry's Pottery
Another large store that had a huge selection covering three levels. I purchased a giant pizza stone here. It’s so big that it doesn’t fit into our tiny German oven, so for right now it’s a turntable on our dining table. This has been an absolute game-changer for Taco Tuesdays.
ANDY Polish Pottery Factory
With quite a few stores under our belts, I was finally getting the hang of the Polish pottery business. Andy’s is where I went absolutely nuts. Their selection was fantastic (so many different designs and objects I hadn’t seen at the other shops we had visited so far) and their prices were great. This was my personal favorite shop that we visited, and I would start here next time.
Andar. Zakład ceramiczny. Tofil A.
We didn’t have Andar on our list but stopped here because it was across the street from Andy’s. There are so many pottery stores in Bolesławiec, and we definitely didn’t have time for all of them. Andar was super small, and since the day was winding down, we left fairly quickly since we didn’t see anything that immediately caught our eye.
Ceramic plants BOLESŁAWIEC Sp. o.o. (Zaklady)
My travel companion was most looking forward to visiting Zaklady since it’s one of the bigger shops, though we were all a little disappointed by it. The selection was decent, but they didn’t really have that many unique designs. Their prices were also higher than we saw at almost all of the other shops. They did have an outlet tent out front with discounted items, but I didn’t see anything that I needed to have.
Pottery Store Cer-Far
We squeezed in Cer-Far since it was right next to Zaklady and we had about 30 minutes before the stores started closing for the day. At this point, I had long abandoned the notion that I would be returning home via the ICE train with a single serving platter, and decided I wanted to replace our dollar store dinner plates. Thanks to Cer-Far, we were mission accomplished and ready to head back to the city center for some pizza and wine at JAK W DYM.
I’m so glad that my friend invited me to tag along on her Poland adventure. It was great to see two unique cities that would be more difficult to travel to from the States. And since I’ve already started a list of items I should have gotten, I’m working to convince Mark that we need to do a return trip.