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Selected city: katowice
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Katowice
The Cathedral of Christ the King in Katowice (Katowice: kah-toh-VEE-tseh) is the mother church of Upper Silesia, Poland's historic industrial heartland, and one of the most monumental churches built anywhere in the country in the 20th cent…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Katowice
Katowice Market Square (Rynek, pronounced roughly "RIH-nek") is the main square of Katowice, the largest city of Poland's Upper Silesia region, and the natural place to start exploring downtown. Trams cross it, the main streets meet here,…
Churches & monasteries
Katowice
Panewniki Basilica – officially the Basilica of St. Louis the King and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – is a Neo-Romanesque Franciscan church in Katowice, southern Poland, best known for one of the largest moving nativity scenes…
Other
Katowice
At the western end of Mickiewicza Street stand two silver-and-gold office towers that in 1981 were the tallest buildings in Poland outside Warsaw. The Stalexport Towers were designed by an architect from Belgrade and built by a Swedish fir…
Nature
Katowice
The Valley of Three Ponds (Dolina Trzech Stawów, say "DOH-lee-na TSHEH-kh STAH-voof") is Katowice's biggest green escape close to downtown: a park of lakes, woodland, bike paths and skating trails just south of the city center. Locals come…
Technical monuments
Katowice
In front of Katowice station stand 16 reinforced-concrete "chalices" – columns that flare upwards like concrete flowers. They echo the famous Brutalist station of 1972, demolished in 2010–2011 despite protests from architects. Today's stat…
Technical monuments
Katowice
The Szyb Wilson Gallery at 1 Oswobodzenia Street in Katowice's Janów-Nikiszowiec district occupies the former miners' assembly hall and bathhouse of the Wilson shafts of the Wieczorek coal mine. It has been open since 2001, and with nearly…
Landmarks
Katowice
Giszowiec (say "gee-SHOH-vyets") is a historic garden-city estate in Katowice, built in the early 1900s for coal miners and their families. Instead of tenement blocks, it has whitewashed cottages with steep red roofs, private gardens and t…
Other
Katowice
Jarmark na Nikiszu is a December craft market on Plac Wyzwolenia in Nikiszowiec, a historic mining estate in Katowice. It has been held since 2008 on the first weekend after Barbórka, the miners' feast of St Barbara, and draws on that trad…
Other
Katowice
The Katowice Christmas Market (Jarmark Bożonarodzeniowy, roughly "YAR-mark bo-zho-na-ro-dze-NYO-vih") transforms the Main Square of Katowice, the capital of Poland's Silesia region, into a glowing winter village of wooden stalls, Ferris wh…
Nature
Katowice
The highest point in Katowice is not a tower block or a slag heap but the beech-covered Wanda Hill (Wzgórze Wandy, about 357 m above sea level). Its slopes hold the Las Murckowski nature reserve – a patch of mixed forest that comes closer…
Landmarks
Katowice
Nikiszowiec (say "nee-kee-SHOH-vyets") is a historic coal miners' housing estate in Katowice, southern Poland, and one of the most photogenic places in the whole Upper Silesia region. Built more than a century ago, its nine red-brick block…
Gardens
Katowice
In 1928 two lionesses moved into this Katowice park – a gift from the owner of a circus in Dresden. The lions are long gone, but Tadeusz Kościuszko Park is still the most valuable green space in Katowice: with a 16th-century wooden church…
Technical monuments
Katowice
On the site of the Katowice colliery, closed in 1999, three buildings went up in 2011–2015 that changed the city's image: the new Silesian Museum, the home of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) and the International Congr…
Old towns & squares
Katowice
Mariacka Street (say "mar-YATS-ka") is the liveliest pedestrian street in central Katowice, lined with 19th-century townhouses and closed at one end by the soaring neo-Gothic spire of St. Mary's Church. By day it is a relaxed spot for coff…