Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Łomża
Łomża Cathedral is a textbook example of Masovian Gothic – with a few surprises. The side aisles hide crystal vaults, rare in this part of Poland; the aisles hold Renaissance tombs from the workshop of Santi Gucci; and set into the wall of…
Churches & monasteries
Łowicz
Łowicz Cathedral (say "WO-veech"), formally the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption and St. Nicholas, stands on the Old Market Square of a small town in central Poland and is nicknamed the "Wawel of Mazovia". It is the burial place of twe…
Churches & monasteries
Nysa
In 1619 a census of parishioners decided whether the church would stay Catholic or pass to the Protestants – the Catholics won by just three people. The Basilica of St James and St Agnes in Nysa, which locals have called the "cathedral" fo…
Churches & monasteries
Pelplin
Pelplin Cathedral (say "PEL-pleen") – the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption – is a former Cistercian abbey church and one of the largest brick Gothic churches in Poland. This small town in the Kociewie region, south of Gdańsk, hides an…
Churches & monasteries
Tarnów
Tarnów Cathedral – the Cathedral Basilica of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – is the centerpiece of Tarnów's Old Town and home to some of the finest Renaissance tomb sculpture in Central Europe. Its red-brick bulk and 72-meter tow…
Churches & monasteries
Zamość
Zamość Cathedral, formally the Cathedral of the Resurrection and St. Thomas the Apostle, is a Renaissance church founded by Jan Zamoyski and designed by Bernardo Morando, the Italian architect behind the whole town of Zamość (say "ZAH-mosh…
Churches & monasteries
Frombork
Frombork Cathedral (Frombork is pronounced roughly "FROM-bork") is a vast Gothic brick church on Cathedral Hill above the Vistula Lagoon in northern Poland, and the burial place of Nicolaus Copernicus. The astronomer spent much of his work…
Churches & monasteries
Włocławek
Włocławek Cathedral (say "vwo-TSWAH-vek"), the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption on Copernicus Square, is one of the oldest and most important Gothic churches in Poland. Its soaring red-brick spires rise above the Vistula River in a mid…
Churches & monasteries
Gorzów Wielkopolski
At the top of the high altar in Gorzów cathedral, a whale swallows the prophet Jonah, a scene rarely found in Polish churches. It is just one detail of the oldest building in Gorzów Wielkopolski: a brick church from the late 13th century t…
Churches & monasteries
Prudnik
On Piastowska Street, in the western part of Prudnik's Old Town, stands the Baroque monastery complex of the Brothers Hospitallers – an order that has been caring for the sick here since 1766. It began as a story of gratitude: a colonel, b…
Churches & monasteries
Chęciny
The Franciscans came to Chęciny in 1368 at the invitation of King Casimir the Great and, with a long break, are still here. In between, their friary burned, served as a Protestant church, spent more than a century as a prison and, under co…
Churches & monasteries
Łódź
Long before Łódź became an industrial city, pilgrims were already heading to the shrine of St Anthony in Łagiewniki on its northern edge. This Baroque Franciscan complex, with a brick church consecrated in 1726, began with a wooden votive…
Churches & monasteries
Nowa Słupia
Święty Krzyż Monastery (say "SHVYEN-ti kshish," meaning "Holy Cross") crowns Łysa Góra, a 594 m summit in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains of central Poland. This former Benedictine abbey has kept relics believed to be fragments of the True Cr…
Churches & monasteries
Ruciane-Nida
On Lake Duś, a kilometre from the Masurian village of Wojnowo, stands a modest yellow building with an eight-pointed cross on its small tower. This is a former monastery of the Old Believers – Russian Orthodox Christians who rejected the c…
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
Kamieniec Ząbkowicki
The former Cistercian abbey in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki is one of the most important monastic complexes in Lower Silesia: a mighty Gothic church with a Baroque interior and the former abbots' palace, with Marianne of Orange's Neo-Gothic palace…
Churches & monasteries
Koprzywnica
In the high-altar painting of the Assumption, made by Bartłomiej Strobel in 1645, tradition has it that King Władysław IV Vasa appears among the figures. This portrait is one of many secrets of the former Cistercian abbey in Koprzywnica ne…
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…
Churches & monasteries
Rzeszów
In the chancel of the Bernardine church in Rzeszów, eight members of the Ligęza family kneel in prayer – life-size, carved in alabaster and facing the altar. It is said to be the largest group of alabaster praying figures in Europe. The ch…
Churches & monasteries
Stary Sącz
The Poor Clares Monastery in Stary Sącz (say "STAH-ri sonch") is the most important historic site in the Sącz region of southern Poland, about 100 km southeast of Kraków. Founded in 1280 by St. Kinga, a medieval duchess who spent her final…
Churches & monasteries
Wigry
Wigry Monastery is a former Camaldolese hermitage on a peninsula in Lake Wigry, a short drive from Suwałki in northeastern Poland. Its white late-Baroque church towers, row of little hermit houses and lakeside setting make it the best-know…
Churches & monasteries
Zagórz
On Mariemont Hill above a bend in the Osława river stand the walls of a monastery that was also a fortress: the Discalced Carmelites prayed here behind five-metre defensive walls and ran a hospital next door for twelve war veterans. In 177…
Churches & monasteries
Żarnowiec
On 10 August 1946 twelve Benedictine nuns from Vilnius arrived at the empty convent above Lake Żarnowiec — with a few belongings and a single goat. They brought back to life a place where no nun had lived since 1866, though its history rea…
Churches & monasteries
Góra Świętej Anny
St. Anne's Mountain (Góra Świętej Anny, roughly "GOO-rah shvyen-TAY AH-nee") is a Franciscan pilgrimage shrine with a baroque basilica, a monastery and a hillside Calvary, set on top of an extinct volcano in Poland's Opole region. It is th…