St Mary's Cathedral

The Cathedral of the Virgin Mary is the oldest and most significant building in Koszalin — a Gothic hall church begun in the early 14th century when the city was a functioning seaport. The exterior is handsome in the brick Gothic style typical of Pomeranian cities, with a massive west tower that dominates the old town skyline. The interior was heavily damaged in the war and reconstructed in the 1950s, so it lacks the original furnishings of comparable churches elsewhere in Poland.

The cathedral serves as the seat of the Diocese of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg, created in 1972. The surrounding old town quarter, while modest in scale, has been pleasantly rebuilt and is good for a half-hour wander. The Koszalin Museum, a short walk away, covers the region's history from the medieval Hanseatic period through the postwar resettlement — when the prewar German population was expelled and replaced by Poles from the east.

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A story
Koszalin's cathedral was built in the early 14th century when the town was a prosperous Hanseatic trading port on a coastal lagoon. The lagoon silted up over the following centuries, cutting the city off from maritime trade and ending its medieval prosperity. The cathedral, however, survived — one of the few Gothic structures that came through the heavy fighting of March 1945 with its structure intact.