Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Lublin
Stand in one corner of the sacristy of Lublin Cathedral and whisper towards the wall — and someone in the opposite corner will hear every word. One story says a bishop wanted to eavesdrop on his visitors; another that it allowed priests to…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Szczebrzeszyn
By a spring on the edge of Szczebrzeszyn stands the world's first monument to a beetle, unveiled in 2002 as a nod to Jan Brzechwa's famous Polish tongue-twister about a beetle buzzing in the reeds of Szczebrzeszyn. Around the town stretche…
Churches & monasteries
Kodeń
The Basilica of St Anne in Kodeń (say KO-den-yuh) is a late Renaissance church with a Baroque facade, home for more than 300 years to the icon of Our Lady of Kodeń, called the Queen of Podlasie and the Mother of Unity. It stands on the mar…
Nature
Kazimierz Dolny
Kazimierz Dolny built its wealth on the Vistula, and the riverside boulevard is the best place to understand how. From the promenade on the flood embankment you can see the parish church, the castle ruins and the tower on the hills, while…
Other
Lublin
The Centre for the Meeting of Cultures (Centrum Spotkania Kultur, CSK) is Lublin's largest arts venue and one of the most striking modern buildings in eastern Poland. Visitors come mainly for its free rooftop viewing terraces, a green roof…
Viewpoints
Parchatka
There are two Hills of Three Crosses on the Vistula near Puławy. The one in Kazimierz Dolny rises right above the market square in the middle of town; the one in Parchatka offers only a wooded climb up a loess gully and a view over the eas…
Landmarks
Kazimierz Dolny
The Przybyła Brothers' Townhouses in Kazimierz Dolny (roughly "kah-ZHEE-myesh DOL-nee") are two Renaissance merchant houses on the town's Market Square whose carved facades have become the symbol of this small Vistula River town in eastern…
Viewpoints
Józefów
In the limestone walls of the Babia Dolina quarry in Józefów, a sharp-eyed visitor can find clam shells about 20 million years old – from the Miocene, when conditions here resembled today's Great Barrier Reef. Stone has been quarried here…
Viewpoints
Susiec
In the pine forest on the south-eastern slope of Krzyżowa Góra, a wide, pale basin of a disused quarry opens up. Its walls, about 200 m long and more than ten metres high, show a cross-section of the Roztocze hills like a geology textbook,…
Landscape parks
Kazimierz Dolny
Kazimierz Landscape Park (Kazimierski Park Krajobrazowy) is the oldest protected landscape park in Poland's Lublin region, wrapped around the historic river town of Kazimierz Dolny (say "KAH-zhee-myesh DOL-nee"). It protects a wild, unregu…
Churches & monasteries
Kazimierz Dolny
The white bulk of the parish church closes off Kazimierz Dolny's Market Square like a stage backdrop: both sides of the square were laid out so that their lines meet at the church. The Church of St John the Baptist and St Bartholomew stand…
Landmarks
Kazimierz Dolny
Mięćmierz ("MYENCH-myesh") is a former rafting and fishing village on the Vistula, now part of Kazimierz Dolny, famous for its thatched cottages and a wooden post mill perched on the riverbank escarpment. Tucked where three ravines meet, a…
Historic sites
Sobibór
The Sobibór Museum and Memorial is a branch of the State Museum at Majdanek, set on the grounds of a Nazi German extermination camp that operated in occupied Poland in 1942 and 1943. Visitors walk a memorial avenue through pine forest, see…
Gardens
Lublin
Lublin's thickest tree grows in the Saxon Garden: a white poplar in the southern part of the park measures more than 6 metres round and has been a protected natural monument since 1997. The city's oldest public park was laid out in 1837 in…
Historic sites
Lublin
The State Museum at Majdanek in Lublin preserves the site of KL Lublin, a German Nazi concentration and extermination camp that operated from 1941 to 1944. Founded in the fall of 1944, it is the oldest museum in the world commemorating the…
Gardens
Nałęczów
Nałęczów Spa Park (say nah-WEN-choof) is a historic 25-hectare spa park in the middle of the town of Nałęczów in eastern Poland, with a pond and "Love Island", a small river, shady avenues and the Małachowski Palace. If you want a peaceful…
Monuments & mounds
Szczebrzeszyn
"W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie" ("In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reeds") – this line from a poem by Jan Brzechwa is known to every Polish child and every foreigner who has tried to master Polish pronunciation; it is…
Monuments & mounds
Susiec
Kargul and Pawlak, the heroes of the cult Polish comedy "Sami swoi" ("All Friends Here"), stand in Susiec for a reason. This is where Sylwester Chęciński, director of the comedy trilogy about two feuding neighbours from beyond the Bug rive…
Viewpoints
Kazimierz Dolny
From a grassy hill above Kazimierz Dolny you look out over a wide bend of the Vistula, the thatched roofs of Mięćmierz and, across the river, the village of Janowiec. Albrechtówka, once called Kamienna Góra (Stone Hill), combines one of th…
Nature
Susiec
The Sopot river, usually calm and sandy, suddenly picks up speed at Czartowe Pole. It cuts into the edge zone of the Roztocze hills, jumps over irregular, jagged rock steps and flows like a mountain stream. Above the gorge, among fir trees…
Castles
Bochotnica
On a steep, wooded spur above the Bystra valley, about 70 metres above the valley floor, brick-and-stone walls with empty window openings emerge from the trees. Locals call them "Esterka's Castle" – although the legend of a royal mistress…
Old towns & squares
Kazimierz Dolny
The Market Square in Kazimierz Dolny is the heart of one of Poland's prettiest small towns: an irregular, cobbled square with a wooden-roofed well in the middle, ornate Renaissance townhouses with arcades, and a parish church looking down…
Old towns & squares
Lublin
Lublin's Old Town Market Square (Rynek) is the heart of one of the best-preserved historic centers in eastern Poland. Colorful merchant houses frame an irregular square, and in the middle stands the elegant Neoclassical Crown Tribunal, the…
Old towns & squares
Zamość
The Great Market Square in Zamość (pronounced roughly "ZAH-moshch") is the centerpiece of a Renaissance "ideal city" in eastern Poland and one of the most harmonious public squares in Central Europe. Laid out in the late 16th century as a…