Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Jurków
White gypsum cliffs, loess gullies, karst ponds and slopes covered in feather grass: in places, the Ponidzie region looks like a piece of steppe dropped into southern Poland. The Nida Landscape Park (Nadnidziański Park Krajobrazowy) protec…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Klimontów
Grand Chancellor of the Crown Jerzy Ossoliński saw how churches were being built in Rome and wanted one of his own in the small town of Klimontów near Sandomierz. The result is St Joseph's Collegiate Church, with a rare elliptical nave sur…
Hidden gemNature
Sandomierz
Queen Jadwiga’s Ravine (Wąwóz Królowej Jadwigi, roughly “VON-voos kroo-LOH-vey yad-VEE-gee”) in Sandomierz is the town’s largest loess ravine: a sunken green corridor about half a kilometer long, with earthen walls several stories high and…
Other
Busko-Zdrój
On the promenade of the Spa Park in Busko-Zdrój, between the main façade of the old Bathhouse (today the Marconi Sanatorium) and the fountain, a row of commemorative slabs is set into the paving. Each carries a bronze "Little Sun" bearing…
Landmarks
Szydłów
The Kraków Gate in Szydłów ("SHID-woof") is the only one of the town's three medieval gates still standing, and the emblem of a small town often called the "Polish Carcassonne." This 14th-century stone gate tower, crowned by a Renaissance…
Fortifications
Opatów
Above the archway of the Warsaw Gate in Opatów a dragon holds a shield bearing the Odrowąż coat of arms – the emblem of the Szydłowiecki family, under whom Opatów flourished as a merchant town at a crossroads of trade routes. The gate is t…
Landmarks
Busko-Zdrój
Behind a stone wall on ul. Widuchowska, about a kilometre east of the centre of Busko-Zdrój, lies the cemetery of the spa town's former Jewish community. Not a single gravestone remains in its original place – the surviving matzevot have b…
Palaces
Samborzec
The manor house in Skotniki, in the Samborzec district south-west of Sandomierz, is a rare example of a fortified noble residence of the "alkierz" type: a single-storey main block with four corner pavilions, a tall broken roof covered with…
Hiking & tourist trails
Święta Katarzyna
The red-marked trail from Gołoszyce to Kuźniaki is the backbone of hiking in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains): it crosses Łysica and Łysa Góra, the boulder fields known as gołoborza, Święty Krzyż and Święta Katarzyna, an…
Mountains & peaks
Chęciny
Miedzianka (pronounced roughly "myeh-JAN-kah", from the Polish word for copper) is a rocky limestone ridge, 354 m (1,161 ft) high, in the Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross) Mountains of south-central Poland. Its summit offers a full 360-degree vi…
Nature
Sandomierz
The rocks beneath your feet here settled on the floor of a Cambrian sea about 500 million years ago. The Pepper Mountains (Góry Pieprzowe), known locally as "Pieprzówki", form a steep escarpment above the Vistula about 2.5 km from Sandomie…
Historic sites
Wiślica
The Wiślica hillfort (in Polish "grodzisko", roughly "gro-JEES-ko"), also called the hillfort "in the meadows", is an early medieval archaeological site on a low island ringed by the Nida River and its old channels, a few hundred meters so…
Churches & monasteries
Jędrzejów
The Cistercian Archabbey in Jędrzejów (YEN-dzheh-yoof), a town in south-central Poland between Kraków and Kielce, is the oldest Cistercian monastery in the country, founded in 1140 by monks from Morimond in France. It is also the shrine of…
Churches & monasteries
Świniary
The Peter's Pence register of 1326 contains the entry "Nicolaus, plebanus ecclesie de Swiniar" – the oldest written mention of the parish of Świniary. Today's wooden Church of St Stanislaus the Bishop stands in this village in the Ponidzie…
Monuments & mounds
Busko-Zdrój
In front of the Busko Municipal Cultural Centre, on a concrete bench shaped like the neck of a guitar, sits a bronze Wojciech Belon with his instrument — the bard of the Ponidzie region and founder of the band Wolna Grupa Bukowina. A phras…
Palaces
Chroberz
In Chroberz on the Nida river stands a late neoclassical palace designed by Henryk Marconi for Margrave Aleksander Wielopolski, 13th holder of the Pińczów entail (a family estate passed down undivided). The palace and park, built in 1857–1…
Gardens
Busko-Zdrój
Busko-Zdrój owes its fame to sulphurous waters, and its green heart is the Spa Park — a fenced bath garden covering 16 ha in the south of the town. At its centre stand Henryk Marconi's classicist Baths of 1836, while the new western part o…
Monuments & mounds
Sandomierz
The Ring in Sandomierz is one of the town's most unusual monuments: an openwork wrought-iron setting holding a huge cabochon of striped flint, in which you can see the letter "S" from Sandomierz's logo. The structure weighs 80 kg and has s…
Nature
Kielce
Kadzielnia (pronounced "kah-JEL-nyah") in Kielce is a former limestone quarry right inside the city, now a geological nature reserve with dramatic rock walls, viewpoints, an underground cave route, a large open-air amphitheater and a zip l…
Old towns & squares
Opatów
Opatów's Market Square (pronounced roughly "oh-PAH-toof"), officially Obrońców Pokoju Square, is a long, narrow square at the heart of one of the oldest towns in southeastern Poland's Świętokrzyskie region. An arcaded town hall lines the s…
Old towns & squares
Sandomierz
Sandomierz Market Square (Rynek in Sandomierz, pronounced roughly “san-DOH-myesh”) is the sloping heart of one of Poland’s oldest and best-preserved towns. A Gothic town hall crowned with a lacy Renaissance parapet stands in the middle, pa…
Nature
Busko-Zdrój
On the edge of Wełecz Forest, a few kilometres from Busko-Zdrój, grows a Scots pine that looks as if it has walked out of the woods on stilts. Its roots lift the trunk about 3 metres off the ground, and several people can stand beneath the…
Old towns & squares
Sandomierz
Sandomierz Old Town (say "san-DOH-myesh") is one of Poland's loveliest historic centers: a hilltop town above the Vistula River with a sloping Market Square, a red-brick Gothic Town Hall crowned by a Renaissance parapet, a medieval city ga…
Landmarks
Sandomierz
The Needle's Eye (Ucho Igielne), also called the Dominican Gate, is a narrow passage through Sandomierz's old defensive walls, leading west from the Old Town towards the Dominican friary at St James's Church. It is the only surviving wicke…