The Royal-Imperial Route is the main tourist and cultural trail in Poznań.
The Royal-Imperial Route takes you to the most interesting corners of the capital of the Wielkopolska region. It is a story whose main characters are the city and the forty generations of men and women living in Poznań over the centuries and creating its history.
The Royal-Imperial Route is a collection of interconnected trails which help develop a special bond with this incredible one-thousand-year-old city.
Walk along the Route’s main axis and you will discover Poznań’s most important places and figures. You will follow the city’s history from the beginning of the settlement and the Piast dynasty to the burghers’ tenement houses to the monumental 20th-century buildings. The signposts with a symbol of a crown will guide you along the shortest way through the old city.
If you want to learn more about one of the districts of the old Poznań and discover its stories, check out the trails complementing the main Route. You will discover the centuries-old Cathedral Island, find traces of medieval and modern Poznań in the Old Town and learn of the pros and cons of the modernisation of the City Centre.
If you look further, you will find additional routes which follow former settlements and suburbs whose names and meaning are nowadays often forgotten. You will also visit places, streets and corners which are somewhat hidden in the urban thicket.
If you want to change your perspective, the Royal-Imperial Route offers you also some thematic trails: they will reveal the pathways and stories of the old ethnic and religious minorities, academics and women living in Poznań as well as other dimensions of Poznań’s rich history.
Whichever route you choose, you will encounter the traces of both those who witnessed and those who made the history of the city by the Warta River: the men and women living here who have been planning, acting, fighting obstacles and changing their surrounding over the centuries.
Meet them on the Royal-Imperial Route!