Walking around Wrocław’s Rynek it’s impossible to miss the form of the elegant looking fella cast in stone sitting outside the Spiż microbrewery. That’s Alexander Fredro, one of Poland’s most distinguished literary figures. His statue replaced that of Kaiser Wilhelm who had stood on that spot during Wrocław’s incarnation as the city of Breslau. Although unharmed by the bombs and bullets of the war Wilhelm fell foul of the iconoclastic fury that was to follow in peacetime, and most likely ended up being tossed into a blast furnace. When Fredro was unveiled to the people of Wrocław in 1956 his plinth came without the aristocratic initials HR. Following popular condemnation the communist authorities relented and Fredro has since stood gazing forth in all his noble brilliance. Like the Mickiewicz monument in Kraków, or Zygmunt in Warsaw, the Fredro statue has grown to symbolize the city, and is the principal meeting point for both canoodling couples, students bashing bongo drums and political agitators.