428 attractions in Lesser Poland, including "Muszyna State" Regional Museum, Museum of the Sącz Region in Nowy Sącz and Kraków Saltworks Museum…
Museums
Muszyna
The "Muszyna State" Regional Museum began in 1958 with keepsakes that local people brought to an old inn below the castle hill. Today it occupies a rebuilt copy of a former 18th-century inn at Krzywa 1 and tells the story of the bishops' "…
Museums
Nowy Sącz
The museum in Nowy Sącz has a history worthy of a novel: its collections went on show for the first time in 1938 in the rebuilt castle, and in January 1945 an exploding ammunition dump reduced the castle – and the exhibits – to rubble. Onl…
Museums
Wieliczka
The Kraków Saltworks Museum in Wieliczka (Muzeum Żup Krakowskich) tells the story of the royal salt company that ran the mines of Wieliczka and Bochnia for centuries. It has two homes: the medieval Saltworks Castle in town and a large unde…
Ski resorts
Zakopane
Skiing on Kasprowy Wierch (kahs-PROH-vee VYEHR-h) above Zakopane is the only true high-mountain skiing in Poland. Runs in the Gąsienicowy and Goryczkowy cirques start at 1,987 m and lie entirely inside Tatra National Park, with no snowmaki…
Ski resorts
Międzybrodzie Bialskie
The Little Beskids (Beskid Mały) are a small, compact range – about 35 km long, around 800 m high on average, with Czupel (931 m) as the highest peak. They are no match for the big resorts, but in winter they offer a few solid places to sk…
Ski resorts
Zakopane
Zakopane is Poland's oldest and most alpine ski base: only here does a cable car carry skiers to almost 2,000 m above sea level, with descents through the glacial cirques of Tatra National Park. Besides Kasprowy Wierch there are slopes in…
Other
Wieliczka
On Wieliczka's Upper Market Square (Rynek Górny) the paving seems to crack open, revealing the depths of the salt mine with St Kinga's Chapel. The illusion is the work of Ryszard Paprocki – the 3D street painting "Solny Świat" (Salt World)…
Gardens
Kraków
The Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden in Kraków is the oldest botanical garden in Poland – a peaceful green oasis less than a kilometer from the Old Town and close to the main railway station. Founded in 1783, it covers almost 10 he…
Museums
Kraków
At the Garden of Experiences you learn physics not from a blackboard but on a swing, at a giant Newton's cradle or while pushing a heavy crate. Named after science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem, the park covers 6 hectares of the Polish Airm…
Gardens
Muszyna
In March or April, depending on the winter, the slope of Sucha Góra in Muszyna is covered with millions of crocuses. The Sensory Gardens, also called the Gardens of the Senses, are a free spa park designed to engage sight, hearing, smell,…
Monuments & mounds
Stary Sącz
The Papal Altar in Stary Sącz (STAH-ri sonch) is a two-story wooden structure on the town's riverside meadows in southern Poland, where Pope John Paul II canonized St. Kinga on June 16, 1999. Built as a temporary stage for the Mass, it was…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Tyniec Abbey (pronounced "TIN-yets") is a Benedictine monastery perched on a white limestone cliff above the Vistula River, within the city limits of Kraków, and one of the oldest abbeys in Poland. Tradition dates its founding to 1044, and…
Landmarks
Czorsztyn
When water began to fill the Dunajec valley in the 1990s, the old village of Maniowy, part of Kluszkowce and the summer-resort quarter of old Czorsztyn vanished beneath Lake Czorsztyn. Some of their buildings survived – taken apart beam by…
Ski resorts
Białka Tatrzańska
The slope at Bania in Białka Tatrzańska has its own chapter in Polish skiing history: Poland's first slope with artificial snowmaking opened here in 1994. Today the resort runs under the name Bania Ski & Fun – a short four-seater chairlift…
Ski resorts
Kluszkowce
On two rocks just below the summit of Wdżar, a compass needle can swing almost all the way round. These magnetic anomalies are one trace of the magma that forced its way into the local sandstone and shale millions of years ago. On the nort…
Ski resorts
Białka Tatrzańska
Kotelnica Białczańska (ko-teh-LNEE-tsah byaw-CHAHN-skah) in Białka Tatrzańska is one of Poland's best-known ski resorts, and its operator bills it as the largest in the country. Set on gentle hills facing the High Tatras, it offers wide, g…
Nature
Ojców
On a summer midday the surface of a white rock on the south-facing side of the Prądnik Valley can heat up to 60°C, while a few dozen metres away, in the shady forest on the north-facing slope, the thermometer reads 22°C. That contrast is t…
Palaces
Brzesko
The last owner of this palace died in Kenya, where he and his wife ran a small tea room – and his ashes only came back to Okocim in 2017. The neo-Baroque "New Palace" of the Goetz family, founders of the Okocim brewery, was built in 1898–1…
Palaces
Wieliczka
Locals also call it the Saltworks Palace, and with good reason: its story has revolved around salt from the start. It was built in the 1780s by the brothers Jan and Piotr Konopka, merchants in the salt trade; later it housed mine officials…
Palaces
Zabierzów
A few minutes from Kraków airport, among the old trees of a five-hectare park, stands a palace where King Henry of Valois spent the night in 1574 and where Archduke Charles and Zita – later the last imperial couple of Austria – were guests…
Palaces
Trzebinia
The Młoszowa Palace (roughly "mwo-SHOH-vah") is a 19th-century mock castle in southern Poland with a remarkable backstory: its owners invented a medieval past for it, complete with fake epitaphs and a fictitious grave of Swedish soldiers.…
Palaces
Nawojowa
In January 1937, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands – the future queen – came to Nawojowa near Nowy Sącz with her new husband Bernhard shortly after their wedding, and Count Adam Stadnicki organised a hunt for them in the forests near Ryt…
Mountains & peaks
Szczawnica
Palenica (say "pah-leh-NEE-tsah") is a 722-meter (2,369 ft) hill in the Little Pieniny range right above Szczawnica, a historic spa town in southern Poland. A four-seat chairlift whisks you from the town center to the top in under five min…
Historic sites
Kraków
The National Pantheon in Kraków occupies the brick crypts of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul at 52a Grodzka Street, halfway between the Main Square and Wawel Hill. Since 2012 it has been the resting place of outstanding figures of Poli…