491 attractions in Silesia, including Eagles' Nests Cycle Trail, Juromania – Kraków-Częstochowa Upland Festival and Piekary Calvary.
Hiking & tourist trails
Podzamcze
Red markers showing a bicycle on a white background lead across the whole Kraków-Częstochowa Jura – from Kraków to Częstochowa, along a chain of medieval strongholds known as the Eagles' Nests. The Eagles' Nests Cycle Trail is almost 190 k…
Other
Podzamcze
Juromania is the festival of the Trail of the Eagles' Nests – a September event when the castles, caves, museums and small towns of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland fill with historical re-enactments, workshops, concerts and guided tours. One…
Churches & monasteries
Piekary Śląskie
On Cerekwica Hill in Piekary Śląskie, next to the basilica housing the image of Our Lady of Justice and Social Love, lies the Piekary Calvary – a "New Jerusalem" of the historicist era. Nearly 10 hectares hold 14 Stations of the Cross chap…
Nature
Bytom
Blachówka is a former open-cast dolomite mine on the boundary between Bytom-Sucha Góra and Tarnowskie Góry-Bobrowniki, worked from 1856 until the 1990s. The pits form a ravine up to 60 m deep, about 200 bats hibernate in the old adits, and…
Nature
Ogrodzieniec
The pale walls of the former quarry of the "Wiek" cement works expose the bed of a Jurassic sea from about 155–160 million years ago – complete with ammonites, belemnites and brachiopods. The pit between Bzów and Ogrodzieniec Castle attrac…
Nature
Olsztyn
The Olsztyn municipality calls this place an "open book of geology", and it is hard to argue. The disused quarry on Kielniki hill, about 1 km south-east of the castle ruins in Olsztyn near Częstochowa, lays bare the inside of a Jurassic hi…
Nature
Bobrowniki
The disused quarry in Rogoźnik, in the Bobrowniki municipality (Będzin County), is for those who prefer wild, overgrown workings to polished attractions. The village lies in a small basin between the Buczyna and Sadowie hills, and the surr…
Nature
Kozy
The wall of the old quarry in Kozy shows how layers of sandstone and shale – black, green and bluish-grey – settled on the sea floor over millions of years. For more than 80 years stone for roads and railways was extracted here; today the…
Nature
Janów
Pale rock walls in the middle of a Jura forest look like a western film set – and a western was indeed shot here. But the name of the Warsaw Quarry (Kamieniołom Warszawski) in Siedlec comes from something else: the limestone cut here, rega…
Other
Radzionków
The seasonal MOSiR outdoor pool complex in Radzionków lies in Księża Góra park, on a hill 357 m above sea level. It has three pools: a 50-metre sports pool, a shallower pool for non-swimmers and a paddling pool with three slides. It is a g…
Churches & monasteries
Milówka
When the Austrian authorities requisitioned church bells for the war effort in 1916, the people of Milówka stole the large bell of St Anthony's Chapel back from the municipal office and buried it. After the war it returned to its place – a…
Waterfalls
Wisła
The Rodło Cascades (Kaskady Rodła, roughly "kas-KAH-dee ROD-wah") are a chain of about 25 natural waterfalls and rock steps in the Biała Wisełka valley above the mountain resort of Wisła, in southern Poland's Silesian Beskids. The two bigg…
Churches & monasteries
Bielsko-Biała
The tower of St Nicholas Cathedral is 61 m tall and has defined the skyline of Bielsko-Biała's Old Town for more than a century. The church on St Nicholas Square, just below the former ducal castle, has Gothic roots going back to 1443, yet…
Mountains & peaks
Międzybrodzie Bialskie
Most visitors end their outing at Żar, beside the reservoir of the pumped-storage power station. Yet about an hour's return walk further on lies Kiczera, also called Kiczora – a peak whose meadows offer even more than Żar itself: the reser…
Historic sites
Cieszyn
On Hażlaska Street in Cieszyn, a few hundred metres apart, lie two Jewish cemeteries. The older, founded in 1647, is among the oldest Jewish burial grounds in Poland and one of the few that remained in continuous use for more than 250 year…
Landmarks
Żarki
On a sandy hill on Polna Street in Żarki, among pines and birches, stand more than 700 matzevot, traditional Jewish gravestones. This is one of the largest surviving Jewish cemeteries in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, the limestone Jura re…
Landmarks
Zawiercie
Behind a brick wall on Piaskowa street in Kromołów, now a district of Zawiercie, stand around 920 matzevot (Jewish headstones) – the oldest commemorates Sulka, daughter of Avraham Hirsh, who died on 21 August 1730. According to Poland's Na…
Churches & monasteries
Częstochowa
Mstów Monastery (say "mm-STOOF") is a fortified complex of the Canons Regular of the Lateran on the Warta River, in the village of Wancerzów just outside Mstów, a short drive northeast of Częstochowa in southern Poland. Behind a wall lined…
Nature
Piekary Śląskie
Kocie Górki is a hilly, birch-covered area on the border of Piekary Śląskie and Radzionków – one of the town's most valuable natural sites, alongside Żabie Doły, Winna Góra and Księża Góra. Different habitats sit side by side in a small sp…
Technical monuments
Ustroń
The Czantoria Chairlift in Ustroń (pronounced roughly "chan-TOR-yah" and "OOS-tron") is a year-round chairlift that carries you in 8–10 minutes up to the Stokłosica meadow (851 m / 2,792 ft) on the slopes of Wielka Czantoria in the Silesia…
Technical monuments
Bielsko-Biała
Yellow glass-sided gondolas gliding over the forest from the Olszówka district have been a familiar sight in Bielsko-Biała for generations. The Szyndzielnia cable car opened on 21 December 1953 as Poland's first gondola lift and the first…
Museums
Gliwice
Kolejkowo Gliwice (roughly "ko-lay-KO-vo") is a huge model railway and miniature world inside the Europa Centralna shopping mall in Gliwice, in Poland's Upper Silesia region. Trains wind past tiny versions of real Silesian landmarks, thous…
Museums
Miasteczko Śląskie
At around 2 p.m. on 17 June 1917, a roar echoed through the Bibiela mine and a torrent of water burst into the workings. The miners managed to escape, but within two hours the entire mine – machinery and equipment included – was under wate…
Monuments & mounds
Piekary Śląskie
The Liberation Mound is the highest point of Piekary Śląskie and one of the key monuments of interwar Upper Silesia. It was raised over five years, in 1932–1937, to mark the 250th anniversary of King John III Sobieski's march to Vienna and…