Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Selected city: warszawa
Museums
Warszawa
The Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw (Centrum Nauki Kopernik, roughly "TSEN-troom NAH-oo-kee koh-PEHR-neek") is Poland's largest hands-on science museum, set right on the Vistula River in the city center. Instead of reading labels behin…
Castles
Warszawa
The Royal Castle in Warsaw (Polish: Zamek Królewski, roughly "ZAH-mek kroo-LEV-skee") is the former seat of Poland's kings and parliament, standing on Castle Square at the entrance to the Old Town. Europe's first modern written constitutio…
Churches & monasteries
Warszawa
St. John's Archcathedral in Warsaw (Archikatedra św. Jana, roughly "ar-hee-kah-TED-rah svyen-TEH-go YAH-nah") is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Warsaw and one of Poland's national pantheons. It stands in the heart of the UNESCO-li…
Castles
Warszawa
On 12 January 1578, at the wedding of Chancellor Jan Zamoyski and Krystyna Radziwiłł, the manor house at Ujazdów staged the first performance of Jan Kochanowski's "The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys" — regarded as the first tragedy written…
Landmarks
Warszawa
From the terrace of the Palace of Culture, Złote Tarasy looks like a glass wave spilling between Warsaw Central Station and Złota Street. Beneath its undulating steel-and-glass roof is one of Warsaw's best-known shopping centres, opened on…
Churches & monasteries
Warszawa
At the top of the facade on Krakowskie Przedmieście gleams a copper globe wrapped in a serpent and crowned with a gilded host — since the 18th century Varsovians have called it the "bania karmelicka", roughly "the Carmelite bulb". The Chur…
Hidden gemPalaces
Warszawa
Wilanów Palace (Polish: Pałac w Wilanowie, roughly "vee-LAH-noof") is the Baroque summer residence of King John III Sobieski in southern Warsaw, often called the "Polish Versailles." Unlike much of the capital, which was rebuilt after Worl…
Palaces
Warszawa
The name comes from the Italian "belvedere", a beautiful view: the palace stands on the highest stretch of the Warsaw escarpment, above Łazienki Park. Grand Duke Konstantin lived at Belweder, insurgents stormed it on the November Night of…
Museums
Warszawa
On the edge of the Vistula escarpment in Mokotów stands a white domed palace modelled on Palladio's Villa Rotonda. Królikarnia is now the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw, and around it lies…
Museums
Warszawa
The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw is the world's largest museum devoted to the composer, set in the Baroque Ostrogski Castle on a bluff above the Vistula valley. Its multimedia exhibition follows Chopin from his Warsaw childhood to his…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Polish History in Warsaw (Muzeum Historii Polski) is one of Poland's largest museums, housed in a huge new building inside the Warsaw Citadel. Its mission is to tell a thousand years of Polish history with a focus on the coun…
Museums
Warszawa
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw tells the thousand-year story of Jewish life in Poland, from medieval merchants to the present day, and is one of the most important museums in Europe. It stands in Muranów, the heart of…
Museums
Warszawa
The National Museum in Warsaw (Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, often shortened to MNW) is one of Poland's largest museums and the biggest art collection in the capital. It spans ancient Egypt and the medieval wall paintings of Faras in Nubia,…
Museums
Warszawa
The Neon Museum in Warsaw (Neon Muzeum) is a private museum that rescues and displays Polish illuminated signs from the communist era: the glowing letters of cafés, cinemas and department stores that once lit up the country's streets at ni…
Museums
Warszawa
The Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) is the place to understand the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 — the single largest military effort by any European resistance movement in World War II, when the Polish underground Home Arm…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, known as MSN) is the newest of the city's major cultural institutions. Since October 2024 it has occupied a striking white building at Marszałkowska 103, right beside the Palac…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Warsaw (Muzeum Warszawy, pronounced "MOO-zeh-oom var-SHAH-vih") is the Polish capital's main city history museum, housed in eleven connected townhouses on the Old Town Market Square. Instead of a classic timeline, its main ex…
Museums
Warszawa
The Polish Army Museum in Warsaw (Muzeum Wojska Polskiego) holds the largest collection of military history in Poland, and since 2023 it has been housed in a new building inside the Warsaw Citadel. Its main exhibition, "1000 Years of Polis…
Museums
Warszawa
In the south-west wing of the Palace of Culture and Science stands the oldest car in Poland, a Cudell from 1899, and next to it an Oldsmobile Curved Dash, the world's first mass-produced automobile. The National Museum of Technology is the…
Palaces
Warszawa
The Palace on the Isle in Royal Łazienki (Łazienki: "wah-ZHEN-kee") is Warsaw's most photographed palace and one of the top things to do in the Polish capital. Set on an artificial island in Łazienki Park, it was the summer residence of St…
Museums
Warszawa
Zachęta National Gallery of Art (pronounced "zah-HEN-tah") is Poland's leading contemporary art gallery, housed in an elegant 1900 building on Małachowski Square in central Warsaw. There is no permanent display: exhibitions by Polish and i…