Wałcz

Wałcz stands between the Raduń and Zamkowe lakes in a district once contested between Pomerania and Greater Poland. Granted town rights in 1303, it returned to Polish rule under Casimir the Great in 1368 and became a royal town and county seat. In 1618 the local starosta invited Jesuits to Wałcz; their college, founded in the 1660s, became known as the “Athens of Wałcz”. Prussia annexed the town in 1772, and the college became a royal gymnasium in 1781.