Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
Wrocław
In August 1980, about 20,000 people gathered outside the gate of this depot while bus drivers went on strike inside. Today the same red-brick hall on ul. Grabiszyńska houses the Depot History Centre (Centrum Historii Zajezdnia), a museum t…
Museums
Białystok
"I was brought up as an idealist; I was taught that all people are brothers," Ludwik Zamenhof wrote years later – while recalling that on the streets of Białystok he saw at every step a division into Poles, Russians, Germans and Jews. The…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The John Paul II Centre "Do Not Be Afraid!" in Kraków is a pilgrimage and cultural complex in the Łagiewniki district (say "wah-gyev-NEE-kee"), built around the octagonal Sanctuary of St. John Paul II, a museum devoted to the Polish pope a…
Palaces
Świerklaniec
The white Neo-Gothic palace with a tall tower in Nakło Śląskie looks more like a Tudor-era English residence than a typical Silesian palace. It was built in 1856–1858 by Count Hugo I Henckel von Donnersmarck, one of the richest industrial…
Museums
Gdynia
The Experyment Science Center in Gdynia (pronounced roughly "ex-PEH-ri-ment") is a hands-on science museum in the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park in the Redłowo district – a place where you don't just look at exhibits but touch, tes…
Other
Pleśna
The Local Produce Centre in Rzuchowa was built on the site of an old carriage house beside the manor barn, at the heart of one of the most extensive surviving manor-and-park estates in the Małopolska region. It is run by farmers from the G…
Museums
Elbląg
Galeria EL Art Center in Elbląg (Centrum Sztuki Galeria EL; say "EL-blonk") is a contemporary art gallery set inside a Gothic former Dominican church, one of the oldest buildings in this northern Polish city. Bare brick walls, historic epi…
Museums
Poznań
The Enigma Cipher Center (Centrum Szyfrów Enigma) in Poznań is an interactive exhibition about one of the great intelligence stories of World War II: how three young Polish mathematicians, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki…
Museums
Oświęcim
The Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim (osh-VYEN-cheem), with the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, tells the story of the town before 1940 – the town its Jewish residents called Oshpitzin. The center brings together the Jewish Museum, t…
Churches & monasteries
Chotyniec
The Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Chotyniec (say "ho-TIN-yets") is a Greek Catholic wooden tserkva – an Eastern-rite church – built in 1615 near the A4 motorway and the Ukrainian border, between Radymno and Przemyśl in sou…
Churches & monasteries
Bielsk Podlaski
Beneath the chancel of this wooden church lies its founder, who died more than five hundred years ago. In the 15th century Princess Wassa founded a church at Bielsk castle, and when the church was moved from Castle Hill into the town in 15…
Churches & monasteries
Owczary
The Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Owczary (say "ov-CHAH-ri") is one of the oldest Lemko tserkvas – wooden churches of the Eastern rite – in Poland, built in 1653 in a quiet valley of the Low Beskids near Gorlice. Since 2…
Churches & monasteries
Kruszyniany
Kruszyniany is known for its wooden mosque and Tatar mizar (Muslim cemetery), but the village has been home to several faiths for centuries. On its northern edge, on the road to Łosiniany, St Anne's Orthodox church with its onion dome stan…
Churches & monasteries
Powroźnik
St. James's Church in Powroźnik (say "pov-ROZH-neek") is a former Lemko tserkva – an Eastern-rite wooden church – regarded as the oldest wooden tserkva in the Polish Carpathians. It stands just outside the spa towns of Krynica-Zdrój and Mu…
Churches & monasteries
Bytów
This small church on a hill in Bytów has changed denomination more often than most churches in Pomerania. It began as a burgomaster's private chapel, became a Protestant church where sermons were preached in Kashubian, and since the 1980s…
Churches & monasteries
Ryboły
With its white brick walls and green domes, the Orthodox church in Ryboły carries a history that predates the 1596 Union of Brest. The present building was consecrated on 22 May 1879, but inside it keeps a much older treasure: the 17th-cen…
Churches & monasteries
Tylicz
This dark red wooden church with three onion domes has stood in Tylicz's cemetery since 1743. It is a Lemko church with an unusual layout – two side chapels off the nave, a feature found elsewhere in the region only at Milik. Inside is an…
Churches & monasteries
Brunary
St. Michael the Archangel's Church in Brunary Wyżne (say "broo-NAH-ri VIZH-neh") is an 18th-century former Lemko Greek Catholic tserkva – a wooden church of the Eastern rite – in the Low Beskids of southern Poland, now the Roman Catholic p…
Churches & monasteries
Kleszczele
The oldest building in Kleszczele was not built as a church. It is a former wooden bell tower from the 18th century that outlived the church it was built for and became a chapel itself. Poland's National Heritage Board describes it as one…
Churches & monasteries
Kwiatoń
St. Paraskeva's Church in Kwiatoń (say "KFYAH-tone") is a former Lemko Greek Catholic tserkva – a wooden church of the Eastern rite – in the Low Beskids of southern Poland. Experts regard it as the model example, and arguably the most beau…
Churches & monasteries
Radruż
St. Paraskeva's Church in Radruż (say "RAH-droosh") is one of the oldest and best-preserved wooden tserkvas – Eastern-rite churches – in Poland: a late-Gothic timber church from the end of the 16th century on an oval hill in the Eastern Ro…
Churches & monasteries
Siemiatycze
On a rise above the Muchawiec stream, behind a stone wall with an ornate gate, stands a church with seven domes. This is the oldest Orthodox parish in Siemiatycze, dating back to the 15th century, while the present brick church was built i…
Churches & monasteries
Bystre
Three metal-clad domes with false lanterns rise above a Bieszczady meadow, well away from the main roads. The church of St Michael the Archangel in Bystre, in the Czarna district of the Bieszczady Mountains, was built in 1901–1902 and fell…
Churches & monasteries
Sanok
In Dobra (formerly Dobra Szlachecka) on the San River, in the Sanok municipality, a walled complex of two sacred buildings survives: a wooden tserkva from 1879 and an older gate tserkva in a tower. Poland's National Heritage Board describe…