Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Ruda Śląska
A brick basilica rises above the Ruda district, looking as if it had been moved from Rome to Upper Silesia. St Joseph's Church was built in 1902–1904 by Count Franz Xaver von Ballestrem, owner of the local mines and ironworks, who modelled…
Churches & monasteries
Toszek
Between the market square and the castle in Toszek stands a church that, from the mid-18th century onwards, drew pilgrims from all over Upper Silesia and even from the part of Poland then under Russian rule. The reason was Pope Clement XII…
Churches & monasteries
Węgierska Górka
In 1893 builders from Żywiec lengthened the nave of the church in Cięcina and rolled the entire wooden tower westwards on logs. A few years earlier, in 1879, the young Stanisław Wyspiański, later one of Poland's greatest artists, sketched…
Churches & monasteries
Woźniki
The tower of St Catherine's Church – square below, octagonal above, with an onion-shaped cupola – marks the centre of Woźniki, one of the oldest small towns in Upper Silesia. The church is built of rough limestone, and its walls have seen…
Churches & monasteries
Żywiec
The low, plastered church with shingled roofs in Rudza, the oldest part of Żywiec, predates the founding of the town on its present site: Holy Cross Church was built around 1380. Locals call it the church of the "Three Crosses", after the…
Churches & monasteries
Siewierz
For centuries Siewierz belonged to the bishops of Kraków, who also ruled here as dukes of Siewierz – and the Church of St Matthias the Apostle bears their mark at every turn. Above the portal hangs the coat of arms of Bishop Kajetan Sołtyk…
Landmarks
Koszęcin
In the mid-18th century two wooden places of worship went up in Cieszowa – a church and a synagogue – and, according to tradition, both were built by the same carpenter. The synagogue is gone, but the wooden Church of St Martin from 1751 s…
Churches & monasteries
Lelów
Lelów was once a royal town guarding the northern approach to Kraków, and its parish church was founded by King Casimir the Great himself. St Martin's Church is today the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation of Lelów – a Gothic church remodel…
Churches & monasteries
Tarnowskie Góry
In Stare Tarnowice, in a churchyard enclosed by a limestone wall, stands the oldest church in Tarnowskie Góry – a relic of the days before the town existed, when Tarnowice was a knightly village. The old Church of St Martin was built from…
Churches & monasteries
Koziegłowy
The Church of St Mary Magdalene and Corpus Christi at 4 Kościelna Street is the former parish church of Koziegłowy, standing just east of the market square. Its greatest treasure lay hidden under plaster for centuries: in 1972 workers came…
Landmarks
Katowice
The oldest building in Katowice was not built in Katowice. The wooden Church of St Michael the Archangel stood in Syrynia near Wodzisław Śląski for more than four centuries, and in 1938 it was taken apart beam by beam and reassembled on Be…
Churches & monasteries
Ruda Śląska
It was meant to be dedicated to St Anthony, like its "older brother" in Rheine in Westphalia – but the director of the local steelworks, Paul Gasz, persuaded the parish to choose another patron. The Church of St Paul the Apostle in Ruda Śl…
Churches & monasteries
Tworków
In September 1993, during renovation of the Baroque church in Tworków, builders found a walled-up entrance to a crypt beneath the pews in the south side of the nave. Inside, under sand and rubble, lay 11 painted metal sarcophagi of the Rei…
Churches & monasteries
Żarki
On Laskowiec hill above Żarki stand the roofless walls of a church, and beneath the grass around them lie burials more than five centuries old. The Ruins of St Stanislaus Church in Żarki are the conserved walls of a small Baroque church bu…
Churches & monasteries
Żarki
At first glance the parish church in Żarki looks like a 19th-century building – and in part it is. Beneath its eclectic exterior, however, stand the walls of a church built in 1518–1522 and funded by Marcin Myszkowski, castellan of Wieluń.…
Churches & monasteries
Ruda Śląska
Around 1900 the number of parishioners in Kochłowice grew tenfold, as coal mines drew thousands of workers to Upper Silesia. The small Baroque church from 1806 was no longer big enough, so a twin-towered Holy Trinity Church rose right next…
Churches & monasteries
Zabrze
On Church Hill in the Mikulczyce district of Zabrze stands the neo-Gothic Church of St Lawrence, but the parish is far older than its brick walls. A collection of Peter's Pence was recorded here as early as 1326, and a late-18th-century pa…
Churches & monasteries
Jeleśnia
On the road from Żywiec to the Slovak border crossing at Korbielów, in the upper part of Jeleśnia, stands the Baroque Church of St Adalbert (św. Wojciech). Its tower is topped with a domed cap that looks more like the churches on the Slova…
Churches & monasteries
Racibórz
The parish church on the Market Square in Racibórz is one of the oldest parish churches in Upper Silesia and the only one in the town that has kept the features of early Gothic. Behind its west front hides an unusual addition – the Polish…
Churches & monasteries
Zbrosławice
The Church of the Assumption in Zbrosławice near Tarnowskie Góry is a Gothic-baroque church from the 15th century and the Sanctuary of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At its heart is a 43-centimetre wooden figure of the Virgin a…
Churches & monasteries
Brenna
The attic of All Saints Church in Górki Wielkie is home to one of the most valuable bat colonies in the region, and behind the church, in the cemetery on the Kępka Prochaskowa hillock, lies the writer Zofia Kossak. The church itself is one…
Churches & monasteries
Poręba
The red-brick tower with its sharp spire is the highest point in Poręba. Construction of this Gothic Revival church began at Pentecost 1901 – hence its dedication to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, recalled by the dove above the main entra…
Churches & monasteries
Goczałkowice-Zdrój
St Anne's little church in Goczałkowice-Zdrój was meant to stand somewhere else, out in the fields. According to local legend, the building materials mysteriously moved overnight to the present site three times – and that is where the chur…
Other
Brenna
"He who has sheep has all he wants" – that is the name of one of the workshops at the Goat Farmstead (Kozia Zagroda) in Brenna, and it sums the place up well. In the centre of the village, hosts Beata and Rafał have reconstructed a highlan…