Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Selected city: karpacz
National parks
Karpacz
Karkonosze National Park (kar-ko-NO-sheh) protects the highest part of the Polish Giant Mountains, from Śnieżka (SHNYESH-kah, 1,603 m), the highest peak of the Sudetes, to glacial cirques, mountain lakes, peat bogs and waterfalls above the…
Mountains & peaks
Karpacz
Śnieżka (pronounced roughly "SHNYEZH-kah"; Czech: Sněžka, German: Schneekoppe) is the highest mountain in the Giant Mountains and the whole Sudetes range, rising above the resort town of Karpacz on the Polish–Czech border. Its rocky cone,…
Old towns & squares
Karpacz
Walking the promenade in Karpacz takes about five minutes, yet this short stretch of ul. Konstytucji 3 Maja packs in Poland's shortest street, the country's highest town hall and a pavement with the bootprints of Polish Himalayan climbers.…
Waterfalls
Karpacz
Dziki Wodospad – the "Wild Waterfall" – looks like a work of nature, but it is in fact a stone debris dam on the Łomnica river, built between 1910 and 1915. Water pours over its crest in a broad curtain, and the name refers to the violent…
Other
Karpacz
The Kopa chairlift in Karpacz, known locally as "Zbyszek," is the easiest way to get from town up into the high Karkonosze, the Polish side of the Giant Mountains. In about eight minutes it lifts you to just below the summit of Kopa (1,377…
Churches & monasteries
Karpacz
Vang Stave Church in Karpacz is a medieval Norwegian wooden church that has stood on a mountainside in southwest Poland since the 1840s. Built in the late 12th or around the turn of the 13th century in Vang, Norway, it was bought by the Ki…
Museums
Karpacz
Henryk Tomaszewski, founder of the Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, brought toys home from every tour – dolls, teddy bears, figurines. That travelling collection became the Municipal Toy Museum in Karpacz, housed since 2012 in the restored forme…
Museums
Karpacz
The Museum of Sport and Tourism in Karpacz tells how the Karkonosze (Giant Mountains) became the mountains of hikers, lugers and skiers. Its collection holds something you will not see anywhere else in Poland: a full set of participation m…
Mountains & peaks
Karpacz
Samotnia mountain hut and the glacial lake Mały Staw (MAH-wee stahv, "Little Pond") form one of the most photogenic spots in Poland's Karkonosze, the Polish half of the Giant Mountains. The hut sits right on the shore of the lake, beneath…
Technical monuments
Karpacz
The Łomnica tumbles down from Śnieżka so steeply that in its upper course it drops an average of 72 metres for every kilometre – and in heavy rain it turns into a destructive torrent full of boulders and trees. The granite dam in Karpacz,…