491 attractions in Silesia, including Krzakoska Rock in Wisła, Penance Cross in Rudyszwałd and Księża Góra Park in Radzionków.
Viewpoints
Wisła
On the slope of Kobyla, a few metres from a hiking trail, the hillside suddenly drops away and a rocky pulpit rises up with jagged, partly overhanging walls. Krzakoska Rock – also known as the Kobyla Rocks – is the best-known climbing crag…
Monuments & mounds
Chałupki
On Zabełkowska Street in Rudyszwałd, set against the wall of a roadside building, stands a short, stocky sandstone cross. It bears no name and no date, yet it is one of the oldest monuments in the village: a stone trace of medieval law, un…
Viewpoints
Radzionków
On a hill of the Tarnowskie Góry Ridge, 357 m above sea level, lies a park that Radzionków owes to the interwar years and to a man who later became governor of the Katowice province – Jerzy Ziętek. Its name, Księża Góra, means "Priests' Hi…
Nature
Żarki
Drive along regional road 792 from Żarki towards Jaworznik and you suddenly see where the Polish Jura ends. The limestone upland breaks off in a steep step, with the wide valley of the upper Warta River spread out below. This is the Jurass…
Nature
Kalety
This woodland meadow in Kalety, between the Miotek district and the town centre on Paderewskiego Street, is officially the ecological site "Purple Moor-Grass Meadow in Kalety". Locals call it the iris meadow because in June it fills with S…
Nature
Podlesice
Before you head in among the white rocks of Góra Zborów, you can spend a few minutes seeing what the whole Jura is made of. The Lapidarium in Podlesice is an open-air display of the typical rocks of the Kraków-Wieluń Upland, from Jurassic…
Nature
Katowice
The highest point in Katowice is not a tower block or a slag heap but the beech-covered Wanda Hill (Wzgórze Wandy, about 357 m above sea level). Its slopes hold the Las Murckowski nature reserve – a patch of mixed forest that comes closer…
Monuments & mounds
Żywiec
In the castle park in Żywiec, next to the Habsburg Palace, a bronze Archduchess Alicja Habsburg sits on a marble bench – a Swede who chose Poland and served in the wartime underground under the code name "Alicja". The life-size sculpture w…
Monuments & mounds
Częstochowa
On a bronze bench on the Avenue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Aleja NMP) sits a bearded doctor, a book and a stethoscope beside him. This is Dr Władysław Biegański (1857–1917), voted "Częstochowa's Citizen of the Century" by local residents…
Viewpoints
Wisła
Under a hundred-year-old wild cherry tree on the Cieńków ridge, one simple rule applies: anyone who sincerely embraces and kisses their loved one here will be happy in love. This "magic tree" reached the final of Poland's Tree of the Year…
Monuments & mounds
Siewierz
On the market square in Siewierz, two bespectacled gentlemen sit on a bronze bench: the composer Stanisław Hadyna and the poet Zdzisław Pyzik. They wrote the song "Od Siewierza jechał wóz" ("A Cart Was Coming from Siewierz"), performed for…
Monuments & mounds
Pszczyna
On the Market Square in Pszczyna, a few steps from the castle gate, a bronze Princess Daisy sits on a bench – leaving a free seat beside her for anyone who wants a photo. The monument was unveiled on 1 May 2009, and miniature versions of i…
Viewpoints
Zwardoń
On the summit of Kikula (845 m), right on the Polish–Slovak border above Zwardoń and the Slovak village of Skalité, stands a bench that makes any adult look like a child: it is 5.3 m long and 3 m high. The Slovaks call it Lavička lásky a r…
Zoos
Ustroń
The Forest Park of Surprises (Leśny Park Niespodzianek, pronounced roughly "LESH-nih park nyeh-spo-DZYAH-nek") in Ustroń is a small woodland zoo on a mountainside in the Silesian Beskids, famous for its free-flight shows with birds of prey…
Nature
Żarki
By the road from Żarki to Jaworznik grows a lime tree that locals call "Babka" – "Granny". It is more than 500 years old; only about a third of its trunk is left and the wood is partly rotten, yet the tree is still alive and puts out new s…
Other
Podzamcze
From a balloon basket the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland looks like a scale model: limestone outcrops, valleys and the ruined castles of the Trail of the Eagles' Nests form a single map. The most recognisable landmark around Podzamcze is the ru…
Mountains & peaks
Szczyrk
Malinowska Skała (1,152 m) is the hub of the Silesian Beskids: ridges run from its summit towards Skrzyczne, Barania Góra and the Salmopolska Pass. The boundaries of Wisła, Szczyrk and Lipowa meet at the top, which is also the old border b…
Hiking & tourist trails
Bielsko-Biała
The Small Beskids Trail (Mały Szlak Beskidzki) is 137 kilometres of red waymarks from Straconka in Bielsko-Biała to Luboń Wielki in the Island Beskids. Once known as the Northern Trail, it is the fourth-longest trail in the Polish Carpathi…
Monuments & mounds
Radziechowy
The stainless-steel cross on top of Matyska gleams in the sun and can be seen from far away. The hill (609 m above sea level) above Radziechowy, about 7 km south-west of Żywiec town centre, is the last distinct high point on a ridge of the…
Historic sites
Świerklaniec
On the north side of the neo-Romanesque church in Nakło Śląskie stands a small brick building on a Greek-cross plan, with a heraldic cartouche above the entrance. It is the family mausoleum of the Catholic line of the Henckel von Donnersma…
Technical monuments
Złoty Potok
The name is said to come from "kołatanie", the rhythmic clatter of the working water wheel. The wooden Kołaczew mill in Złoty Potok stands on the upper course of the Wiercica stream, where it flows out of the Green Pond (Staw Zielony). The…
Other
Tarnowskie Góry
Step off the train in Tarnowskie Góry and you walk straight into five hundred years of the town's history, painted on a single wall. The Jubilee Mural at the transport interchange next to the station is around 120 metres long and, accordin…
Fortifications
Racibórz
Only fragments survive of the walls that for centuries surrounded Racibórz's Old Town – but one of them has become the town's emblem. The Renaissance Prison Tower of about 1574, with its attic and four corner turrets, features in Racibórz'…
Museums
Częstochowa
Among silver votive offerings, robes for the Miraculous Icon and 17th-century portraits of monks lies an object straight from a church-fair stall: a big red ballpoint pen with a postcard of Pope John Paul II inside. On 31 August 1980 Lech…