photo: User: Merlin / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

Due to the location on the route between Wrocław and Wielkopolska, from the very beginning of its existence at the beginning of the 12th century, Milicz served as a commercial center in the vicinity, and was also the seat of the castellany. The development of the hillfort, which in the middle of the next century (1245) obtained city rights, was for many years closely related to the Silesian branch of the Piast family – first it was the property of Bolesław the High, and then subsequent dukes of Henryków: Pious, Biały, Probus, Fat, Głogowczyk and Wierny ; the last Piasts from the Oleśnica dynasty ruled in Milicz until 1492. Later, Milicz shared the political fate of the entire Silesia, coming under the rule of Prussia in the middle of the 18th century.

In Milicz itself various traces of its rich past have survived to this day. We will find here, therefore, the market square with historic tenement houses, the former Evangelical Church of St. Cross from 1714 (one of the so-called churches of grace), currently the Catholic church of st. Andrzej Bobola, the 19th-century church of St. Anna and a classicist palace from the end of the 18th century with an English-style garden, made at the request of Joachim Charles Maltzan (a representative of the aristocratic family associated with the city from 1590 until the end of World War II).

Until recently, the Wrocław Commuter Railway, a narrow-gauge railway line connecting Wrocław with Ligota Piękna, Trzebnica and Prusice, was inherently associated with the landscape of the Ponds of Milice; at two former stations in Milicz (Milicz Wąskotorowy and Milicz Zamek), trains that used to run along the route are presented as exhibits, while a narrow-gauge park railway line in Krośnice was recently opened, referring to the WKD tradition. Today it is best to explore the region by bike, using a network of tourist routes (interestingly, one of them, covering a section of 20 km long, runs along the route of the former cable car), or by canoe, admiring the natural beauty of the Barycz Valley from the water.