Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Fortifications
gmina Kętrzyn
The Wolf's Lair (Polish: Wilczy Szaniec, German: Wolfsschanze) near the village of Gierłoż (say "GYER-wosh") in north-eastern Poland is what remains of Adolf Hitler's main military headquarters during World War II. Spread over some 250 hec…
Fortifications
Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki
Modlin Fortress (MOD-leen) in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki is one of the largest and best-preserved fortresses in Poland, set where the Vistula, Narew and Wkra rivers meet, about 30 km (19 miles) northwest of Warsaw. Ordered by Napoleon, enlarged…
Fortifications
Osowiec-Twierdza
The Russians built this fortress at a point where the belt of Biebrza marshes narrows. The railway from Białystok to Ełk and on to Königsberg ran through this gap. The wetlands worked as a natural moat, and the forts sealed the only dry ro…
Hidden gemFortifications
Srebrna Góra
Srebrna Góra Fortress (say "SREB-nah GOO-rah"; German Silberberg) is the largest and best-preserved mountain fortress in Poland, built by Prussia in 1765–1777 above a pass between the Owl Mountains and the Bardo Mountains in Lower Silesia.…
Hidden gemFortifications
Kłodzko
Kłodzko Fortress (pronounced roughly "KWOTS-ko") is one of the largest and best-preserved fortresses in Poland, spread over a hill above the old town of Kłodzko in Lower Silesia, close to the Czech border. Over more than 30 hectares you wi…
Hidden gemFortifications
Giżycko
Boyen Fortress in Giżycko (say "gee-ZHITS-ko") is a vast 19th-century Prussian fort in the heart of Poland's Masurian Lake District, about 250–280 km north-east of Warsaw. Built to guard a narrow strip of land between two lakes, it still h…
Hidden gemFortifications
Poznań
Citadel Park (Park Cytadela, "tsi-tah-DEH-lah") in Poznań is the city's largest park — about 100 hectares of green hilltop just north of the center, built on the ruins of Fort Winiary, a huge 19th-century Prussian fortress. It's where loca…
Fortifications
Warszawa
The Warsaw Barbican (Barbakan, pronounced "bar-BAH-kahn") is a red-brick fortified gateway from the mid-16th century that links the Old Town and the New Town in the heart of Poland's capital. Almost every walk through the Old Town passes t…
Fortifications
Częstochowa
The walls of St Roch's Bastion still bear the marks of Swedish cannonballs from the siege of Jasna Góra in 1655. This massive, many-sided bastion at the north-western corner of the former Jasna Góra fortress was built in 1631–1636. Its old…
Fortifications
Trzebiatów
One night, as troops from neighbouring Gryfice prepared to storm Trzebiatów, a guard on the tower dropped a bowl of hot porridge straight onto the head of one of the attackers. The scalded man's scream roused the defenders and the town was…
Fortifications
Złotoryja
The round stone tower with brick battlements stands by a busy street a few minutes from the market square and is the best preserved part of Złotoryja's medieval fortifications. Its entrance is not at street level but 6.6 metres up – the wa…
Fortifications
Byczyna
Piaskowa (Sand) Tower, also called the South Tower, closes off from the south one of the best-preserved rings of town walls in Poland. Inside, the vault over a former starvation dungeon has survived, and during the 2023–2024 restoration th…
Fortifications
Kazimierz Dolny
The tower in Kazimierz Dolny is a round stone keep standing alone on the crest of Castle Hill – the oldest fortification in town and one of the best viewpoints over the Vistula River. It was built around 1300, before King Casimir the Great…
Fortifications
Krapkowice
Every day at noon a bugle call – the town's hejnał – rings out from a stone tower in Krapkowice. The tower, also called the Upper Gate Tower or Prudnik Gate Tower, is the only survivor of the town's four gates and the best-preserved part o…
Fortifications
Olkusz
The tower in Olkusz is a reconstructed half-tower with a stretch of defensive wall, standing in a corner of the Old Town right next to St Andrew's Basilica. It is the best-preserved and most legible trace of the medieval fortifications of…
Fortifications
Hel
The Heliodor Laskowski Battery in Hel is a pre-war Polish coastal artillery battery hidden in the pine forest at the very tip of the Hel Peninsula, a few hundred meters from Hel Lighthouse. In September 1939 its four Swedish-made Bofors gu…
Fortifications
Wieluń
The tower that now serves as Wieluń's town-hall tower began life as a medieval town gate guarding the road to Kraków. The Kraków Gate (Brama Krakowska) is the only surviving gate of Wieluń's old walls, and since 1842 it has been part of a…
Fortifications
Byczyna
The German Gate, Byczyna's western gate tower, is the first thing you see when you enter the old town from national road 11. The lower part of the tower is built of rubble stone, the upper part of brick, and its name comes from the fact th…
Fortifications
Niemodlin
In the forest near Niemodlin two brick piers with arched openings stand on their own, as if someone forgot the rest of the building. This is the Niemodlin Gate, also called the Black Gate – one of five gates of the former deer park of the…
Fortifications
Ziębice
A tall, pale tower with a pointed brick cone rising above its battlements like a sharp cap – after the basilica, this is the most recognisable sight in Ziębice. The Paczków Gate dates from 1491 and is the only surviving gate of the medieva…
Fortifications
Byczyna
According to local historians, it was beneath this gate in 1588 that Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg – a claimant to the Polish throne defeated by Hetman Jan Zamoyski – surrendered. Byczyna's eastern gate tower, known as the Polish Gate, s…
Fortifications
Opatów
Above the archway of the Warsaw Gate in Opatów a dragon holds a shield bearing the Odrowąż coat of arms – the emblem of the Szydłowiecki family, under whom Opatów flourished as a merchant town at a crossroads of trade routes. The gate is t…
Fortifications
Grodków
Grodków once had four town gates with towers. Two survive, and the Ziębice Gate, on the western side of the former ring of walls, is the one you can still walk through under a Gothic arch. The tower mixes two styles: the lower part is medi…
Fortifications
Ustka
The Blücher Bunkers in Ustka are a surviving German coastal and anti-aircraft battery from the late 1930s, hidden among pine trees on a dune just west of the harbor in this Polish Baltic resort. Today the underground shelters house a moder…