Szlak JelonkówJelenia Góra Town Trail · the short route
Time Gates – Underground of Jelenia Góra
Under Wzgórze Kościuszki there are about four kilometres of tunnels cut into rock, of which a kilometre and a half can be visited. They are not medieval and have nothing to do with a castle. The first were cut in 1852–1853 by a brewer who needed somewhere to keep his beer – the rest was added by the war. Later there was a fish store here, a mushroom farm and a disco.
It began with a gallows
Before anything was dug, this hill was called the Galgenberg – Gallows Hill. A masonry town gallows stood here and served the town from the Middle Ages into the eighteenth century. Later the name Cavalierberg took hold, and that is the one on pre-war postcards.
In 1779 mayor Johann Christoph Schönau had the ground reclaimed, trees planted and paths laid out. A place of execution became the first municipal park in Jelenia Góra – and it still is one.
A refrigerator from before refrigeration
In 1852 the local brewer Gruner built the Felsenkeller restaurant – the Rock Cellar – on the hill, and cut large cellars for beer and wine beneath it.
It sounds prosaic until you think what it meant in the middle of the nineteenth century. There was no refrigeration. Bottom-fermented beer needs a low, steady temperature, and the only place where such a temperature occurs by itself is inside rock. So if you wanted beer, you had to cut yourself a hill.
Gruner cut one. And the restaurant above the cellars became one of the most popular places in town – the view from its veranda ended up on pre-war postcards.
The war enlarges them
During the Second World War the cellars were turned into an air-raid shelter. Not from scratch: the hill was chosen precisely because the cut chambers were already there, and they were extended – new corridors, four large halls, water, ventilation, gas-tight doors. The shelter was to hold first two, ultimately over six thousand people. It was never finished; after the war the work was assessed as some seventy-five per cent complete, and Jelenia Góra was never bombed.
Hence the present scale: about four kilometres of corridors and over five thousand square metres. A brewer would not have needed that much.
The digging was done by prisoners of war. Exactly which – is not known: some sources write of French prisoners, while the only account based on a post-war survey speaks of Russians. What is certain is that the tunnels under this park were cut by forced labour, and that is the one thing to take away from here.
Fish store, mushrooms and a disco
After the war came a series of uses whose common denominator is a steady temperature and no windows. Operating here – in an order the sources do not agree on – were a Fish Board warehouse, a mushroom farm, a chemical wholesaler and finally discos: first Cosmos, then UnderGround. The last went dark around 2005.
Fish, mushrooms and a disco in the same place illustrate rather well how a town copes with inherited infrastructure: it finds one use after another until the ideas run out.
They ran out for a while and the corridors stood empty. The building of the former restaurant above them was eventually taken over by the LOK driver training centre.
From 2018 – Time Gates
In December 2018 the tunnels opened as a tourist attraction under the name Time Gates.
There are two parts. The historical route is about a kilometre and a half of corridors under Wzgórze Kościuszki – the longest accessible underground route in the Karkonosze – visited with a guide, in 45 to 60 minutes. The story told is that of Lower Silesia, presented as a succession of “gates of time”.
The second part is the science route – physics demonstrations, with a Tesla coil and experiments with liquid nitrogen. It has little to do with the history of the place, but it works on children better than anything else on this route.
Why here of all places
Wzgórze Kościuszki is not a random spot. It is solid rock right by the town – a hill of Karkonosze granite, exactly the material in which cutting paid off. Had it been sand instead of rock, vaults would have had to be built, and that is quite different money.
There is a second, less obvious thing. The cellars were made in 1852–1853, nine years before permission was given to demolish the town walls – at the moment when Jelenia Góra was ceasing to be a town enclosed in a ring of fortifications and starting to build up its suburbs. These corridors are contemporaries of that change. They were made outside the old town, because the old town was just then ceasing to have edges.
Visiting
- Groups enter at fixed times, with a guide – you cannot drop in; you either catch an entry time or wait for the next.
- It is about seven degrees underground all year round. This was a cold store and it still behaves like one – bring sleeves, even in July.
- The historical route takes 45 to 60 minutes; with the science route allow more.
- Night visits are run under the name Historical Route MAXI, on selected dates.
- Current hours, prices and dates are published by the site itself at timegates.pl – I am not copying them here, because they change.
What else is nearby
This is the last stop on the route, and it can be taken as the point of the whole walk: it begins at the walls that closed the town in, and ends beneath the hill where the town began to spread once those walls were gone.
Wzgórze Kościuszki itself is worth walking over the top – it is still a park, with paths laid out by mayor Schönau and a view of the Karkonosze. There is also a nature and history trail, and on it a curiosity few people know: the “Geological cross-section through the Western Sudetes”, unveiled on 3 July 1902, twenty metres long and built from some thirty kinds of rock after a profile by the Wrocław geologist Georg Gürich.
On the other side of the centre lies Wzgórze Krzywoustego, the first stop on this route; the whole old town fits between the two.
Frequently asked questions
Are the tunnels in Jelenia Góra medieval? No. The oldest corridors were cut in 1852–1853 as cellars for beer and wine, and most of the system dates only from the Second World War. They have no connection with a castle or the fortifications.
How long is the route? The historical route is about a kilometre and a half and takes 45 to 60 minutes. The whole system, however, runs to some four kilometres – you see part of it.
Who cut these cellars? The Jelenia Góra brewer Gruner, who in 1852 built the Felsenkeller – the Rock Cellar – restaurant on the hill and needed a cool store for beer and wine.
Do you need a guide? Yes, the historical route is visited in guided groups at fixed times.
Is it cold? Yes, about seven degrees all year round. The cellars exist precisely because the temperature in them is low and steady. Bring a jumper.
What was here before? The cellars of the Felsenkeller restaurant, then a wartime air-raid shelter, and after the war a Fish Board warehouse, a mushroom farm, a chemical wholesaler and discos – the last of them running until about 2005.
Who dug the wartime corridors? Prisoners of war. The sources disagree about their nationality: some say French, others Russian. What is certain is that it was forced labour.
Where does the name Gallows Hill come from? Because the town gallows stood here, from the Middle Ages into the eighteenth century. The park was laid out in its place in 1779.
Is it good for children? Yes – especially the science route with the Tesla coil and the liquid nitrogen demonstrations.
