Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Selected city: zakopane
Landmarks
Zakopane
The landowner Zygmunt Gnatowski wanted to build an ordinary highlander's cottage in Zakopane to house his ethnographic collection. Stanisław Witkiewicz talked him into something new. The result, built in 1892–1893, was Villa Koliba, the fi…
Museums
Zakopane
Jan Kasprowicz bought the wooden villa at Harenda in 1923 from an English painter for 500 pounds, money he had earned translating Shakespeare. He lived here for only three years, until his death in 1926, but his widow Maria kept the house…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The Jaszczurówka Chapel (yash-choo-ROOF-kah), formally the Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is one of the most beautiful wooden buildings in Zakopane and a textbook example of the "Zakopane style." It was designed by Stanisław Witkiewi…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The church in Harenda arrived in Zakopane by train. Built in 1710–1720 in Zakrzów near Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, it stood unused and decaying after a new church was built there, until in 1947–1948 it was dismantled, carried to the foot of the…
Museums
Zakopane
The Oscypek Museum at ul. Jagiellońska 28 in Zakopane has no display cases. Instead of an exhibition there is a 90-minute show in which a baca (a highland head shepherd) makes oscypek, the region's famous smoked sheep's cheese, from milk t…
Museums
Zakopane
The Tatra Museum (Muzeum Tatrzańskie) in Zakopane is the best place to understand Poland's favorite mountain town before you head into the hills. Its main building on Krupówki (kroo-POOF-kee), the town's busy pedestrian street, tells the s…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The Our Lady of Fatima Sanctuary at Krzeptówki (kshep-TOOF-kee) in Zakopane is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Tatra region and a church closely tied to Pope John Paul II. Local highlanders built it as a thank-offering af…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
Drive into Zakopane from the Olcza side and you will see a church whose roof is made up of five segments of unequal height. From the side they look like hands joined in prayer, and at the same time like steep highland roofs and Tatra peaks…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The Old Church in Zakopane (Stary Kościół, pronounced roughly "STAH-ri KOSH-choow"), officially the Church of Our Lady of Częstochowa, is the oldest parish church in Poland's best-known mountain resort. This small wooden church on Kościeli…
Thermal baths & water parks
Zakopane
Termy Zakopiańskie (roughly "TER-mi zah-ko-PYAN-skyeh"), formerly known as Aqua Park Zakopane, is the thermal water park inside Zakopane itself, Poland's best-known mountain resort. It sits on Jagiellońska Street at the foot of Antałówka h…
Museums
Zakopane
Karol Szymanowski called it his "beloved highlander's cottage". The composer lived in the wooden Villa Atma on Kasprusie Street, a few minutes' walk from Krupówki, from 1930 to 1935, and finished his ballet Harnasie here. Today it houses t…