Mostek Pokutnic, Wrocław

Mostek Pokutnic, widely known as the Witches’ Bridge, links the twin towers of St Mary Magdalene’s Cathedral at their highest occupied level. Let the slim opening between the towers hold your attention for a moment. Documents mention this link in 1459, shortly after the towers were completed.

It hangs forty-five metres above the ground and has served as a viewing place from its earliest days; an orchestra also played here. A fireworks display for Emperor Wilhelm the First’s birthday ended disastrously when fire consumed the bridge and both towers during the night of the twenty-second to the twenty-third of March 1887. The bridge returned during rebuilding that lasted from 1888 until 1892.

Near the end of the war, on the seventeenth of May 1945, an explosion, probably from a mine, tore apart part of the southern tower and destroyed the bridge again. Its return had to wait until the turn of the present century. The name comes from local legend: Tecla, a young woman from Wrocław, was cursed by her father and carried here by dark forces, until a witch eventually freed her. Other tales imagine penitent spirits lingering on this airy passage.