Fountain Avenue

The Fountain Avenue is a promenade street, about 250 m long, which is an ideal stop for coffee while exploring the city.

Some of the buildings in the alley are from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and some of the old buildings destroyed during the war were rebuilt as the Downtown Housing District.

From the side of Grunwaldzki Square you can see the Statue of the Sailor, a work of Ryszard Chachulski, made of copper in 1980.

Before the Fountain Avenue was installed in this spot, this place housed one of three Szczecin forts - Fort Wilhelm. This fort extended beyond the north-western corner of fortifications. After the fortifications were abolished at the end of the 19th century, this part was built up with tenement houses and extensive communication routes at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

Residents’ favourite walking route was built from the current Żołnierza Polskiego Square towards Kasprowicz Park in the first years of the twentieth century.

During the Allied air raids, the compact built-up area of the current Lotników Square was almost completely demolished and during the post-war reconstruction in the 1950s, the Downtown Housing District (Śródmiejska Dzielnica Mieszkaniowa) was created here. In the mid-1970s a row of fountains was built on the 250 m section between Lotników Square and Grunwaldzki Square, which were later rebuilt several times. 

The Fountain Avenue was visited by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, CPSU Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister in his government Eduard Shevardnadze and many others.

On 11 June 1987, Pope John Paul II travelled along the Fountain Avenue to meet the faithful of Szczecin and Pomerania in Jasne Błonia. To commemorate the Pope's visit to Szczecin, the name of Aleja Jedności Narodowej was changed to Pope John Paul II Avenue, and the name Jasne Błonia to Pope John Paul II Jasne Błonia.