This raucous courtyard (or 'passageway') five minutes from the market square is one of Wrocław's most popular and legendary all-night party destinations. Packed with over a dozen bars and clubs inside a space of less then 50 metres, you almost expect it to be fair game to take your drink with you as you go door to door exploring each one (it's not). While the venues here change often, some mainstays like Niebo and Bezsenność have been highlights of the city's drinking scene for what seems like forever.

Once a somewhat offbeat alternative to drinking on the market square, in recent years this historic passageway has been renovated and gone full mainstream with banners that welcome tourists and young girls who seem to have forgotten to finish dressing handing out leaflets. An obvious effort to keep some order and crack down on outside drinks is also now being made; to this end gates have been installed at both ends, where you can expect guards to tell you to lose that vodka bottle, and even frisk your purse for whatever else you've got squirrelled away. As a result, the neighbouring space in front of the bank at the corner of ul. Kazimierza Wielkiego and ul. Ruska has become a total free-for-all of pre-entry binge drinking.

If you favour a quiet drink in sophisticated surroundings, you'll want to stay as far away from this hedonist haven swarming with students as possible; Pasaż Niepolda parties all night, sustaining an unprecedented level of energy, noise and sloppiness all the way through to morning. It's a spectacle that has to be witnessed, though may not be to everyone's taste, particularly since the quality of bars here has declined of late. Officially addressed at ul. Ruska 51, Pasaż Niepolda is just west of the centre in a courtyard connecting Ruska and Św. Antoniego Streets. To find it make your first left off Ruska after crossing ul. Kazimierza Wielkiego. The bars we list below may have official opening hours, but they basically don't close; when you come clamouring out of one of them cursing the daylight, don't say we didn't warn you.