428 attractions in Lesser Poland, including Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Zielonki, Church of the Visitation, Sucha Beskidzka and Church…
Churches & monasteries
Zielonki
From the street you first see a modernist entrance of 1966 crowned by an openwork steel tripod with a cross. Behind it, though, is a late Gothic 16th-century church with Renaissance details carved by stonemasons then working in Kraków. The…
Churches & monasteries
Sucha Beskidzka
In Sucha Beskidzka, two churches linked by a corridor share the dedication to the Visitation of the Virgin Mary: an intimate stone "old church" of 1613–1614 and Teodor Talowski's monumental parish church with a 54-metre tower. The first ho…
Churches & monasteries
Czorsztyn
From the outside it is a modest 1980s church with a steep roof and a small bell turret. Inside, though, it keeps mementoes of a world that vanished under water: furnishings from the church of Stare Maniowy, flooded when Lake Czorsztyn was…
Churches & monasteries
Libiąż
The Church of the Transfiguration at 83 Oświęcimska Street in Libiąż is a red-brick Neo-Gothic church from the early 20th century whose interior deliberately imitates St Mary's Basilica in Kraków. Under a deep-blue, star-studded vault stan…
Landmarks
Zator
The wooden Church of St Andrew in Graboszyce near Zator stands opposite a Renaissance fortified manor built by the same founder, Dziwisz (Dionizy) Brandys. It was built around 1585 in the Silesian-Lesser Poland style, and its oddity is a t…
Churches & monasteries
Liszki
To build the church in Morawica, Prince August Aleksander Czartoryski sold the treasures of the chapel at Tenczyn Castle and then had half of Morawica's old castle pulled down. On its rubble, between 1743 and 1748, rose the Baroque Church…
Churches & monasteries
Jerzmanowice
The church in Jerzmanowice has bells older than the building itself. One was cast in 1545, in the reign of King Sigismund the Old, the other in 1548. They survived because during the First World War parishioners buried them in the ground b…
Churches & monasteries
Wadowice
The parish of Barwałd is one of the oldest in the Archdiocese of Kraków – first recorded in 1326, it celebrates its 700th anniversary in 2026. Its wooden Church of St Erasmus, consecrated in 1782, has an unusual layout: the tower stands on…
Churches & monasteries
Giebułtów
The high altar of this small church near Kraków holds a painting of Our Lady of Częstochowa dated 1623 – according to conservators, probably the oldest surviving copy of the famous Jasna Góra icon. The Church of St Giles in Giebułtów is th…
Churches & monasteries
Brzesko
Brzesko's old Gothic church has not disappeared, though at first glance it is hard to spot. In the 1980s a new, much larger nave was added on its north side, and the former church became its entrance hall. Walking into St James's therefore…
Churches & monasteries
Dobczyce
In the central arch of the bell tower beside St John the Baptist's Church hangs the bell "Jan", cast in 1504 in the reign of King Alexander Jagiellon – the only Dobczyce bell to survive the Second World War. Around its shoulder runs a Germ…
Churches & monasteries
Jodłownik
In the centre of Wilkowisko, the largest village in the Jodłownik district, beside the Owsianka stream, stands the wooden Church of St Catherine of Alexandria – the third church on this site. Its predecessor was destroyed by a great fire o…
Churches & monasteries
Nowy Targ
Inside St Catherine's Church hangs a Latin inscription, "Fundata a Casimiro Magno Anno Domini 1346" – founded by King Casimir the Great in the year 1346. The brick chancel and the stone holy-water stoups by the entrances survive from that…
Churches & monasteries
Wolbrom
The Baroque church in the north-eastern corner of Wolbrom's market square has walls about 1.5 m thick and for centuries doubled as a small fortress. Its history goes back to 1346, and its present form was given in the 17th century by the C…
Churches & monasteries
Wieliczka
For centuries this was the miners' parish: every morning a special "diggers' Mass" was said here for the crews about to go underground, and the altars were paid for by the officials who ran the royal salt works. St Clement's Church in Wiel…
Churches & monasteries
Zawoja
The parish itself counts St Clement's Church in the centre of Zawoja among the largest wooden churches in Poland. Built in 1888 with funding from Archduke Albrecht of Habsburg, it surprises with its scale: three aisles divided by cast-iron…
Churches & monasteries
Chabówka
Right beside the Zakopane road, on the western slope of Piątkowa Góra on the border of Chabówka and Rdzawka, stands the wooden Holy Cross Church "na Obidowej". Built in 1757, surrounded by arcades and old lime trees, it has been a stop on…
Churches & monasteries
Lipnica Murowana
St. Leonard's Church in Lipnica Murowana (say "LEEP-nee-tsa moo-ro-VAH-na") is a tiny late-Gothic wooden cemetery church tucked under old trees beside the Uszwica stream, about an hour from Kraków. Since 2003 it has been one of six compone…
Churches & monasteries
Wojnicz
A few minutes from the A4 motorway exit, on St Leonard Street in Wojnicz, stands a small wooden church with a shingled roof and a little bell turret. For centuries it was a hospital church that cared for the poor, and its altar holds paint…
Churches & monasteries
Andrychów
St Matthias Church is the parish church in the centre of Andrychów, at the foot of the Little Beskids. The masonry church dates from 1646 and was rebuilt and extended many times over the following centuries. Its greatest treasure is the im…
Churches & monasteries
Bydlin
St Margaret's Church in Bydlin (Klucze municipality) is a church built in 1865, seat of a parish whose origins go back to the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. It is worth extending your visit to the cemetery chapel with its 15th-centur…
Churches & monasteries
Krzeszowice
The Neo-Gothic Church of St Martin on the Krzeszówka river bears the signature of one of the most famous architects of 19th-century Europe. It was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the leading Prussian architect of his day, and funded b…
Landmarks
Mszana Dolna
In Kasina Wielka, in the Island Beskids between the peaks of Lubogoszcz, Śnieżnica, Ćwilin and Wierzbanowska Góra, there are two churches: a new one of brick and an old wooden one from 1678. The latter, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, is o…
Churches & monasteries
Binarowa
In Binarowa it is hard to find a patch of wall without paint: the ceilings are covered in Gothic plant ornament, the walls in Baroque picture cycles, and even the confessionals are painted. This log church from around 1500 was added to the…