Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Viewpoints
Parchatka
There are two Hills of Three Crosses on the Vistula near Puławy. The one in Kazimierz Dolny rises right above the market square in the middle of town; the one in Parchatka offers only a wooded climb up a loess gully and a view over the eas…
Viewpoints
Nowa Ruda
The round red-sandstone tower on All Saints' Hill carries a relief of a Prussian field marshal above its door, a reminder of the Moltke family, who helped pay for it in 1913. From its gallery, about 15 metres up, you can even see Śnieżka i…
Castles
Grudziądz
On a hill rising some 60 m above the Vistula once stood one of the mightiest Teutonic castles in the Chełmno Land. The Prussians took it apart for its bricks, German soldiers blew up the last surviving tower in 1945 – and the people of Gru…
Castles
Drohiczyn
For centuries this hill above the River Bug carried a stronghold fought over by Ruthenian, Lithuanian and Masovian princes. Not a single wall of the castle survives, but Castle Hill in Drohiczyn, the historic capital of Podlasie, is today…
Nature
Sandomierz
The rocks beneath your feet here settled on the floor of a Cambrian sea about 500 million years ago. The Pepper Mountains (Góry Pieprzowe), known locally as "Pieprzówki", form a steep escarpment above the Vistula about 2.5 km from Sandomie…
Nature
Olsztyn
These two bare limestone hills outside Olsztyn look as if someone had stacked white bales of goods on the grass, and according to one theory that's exactly where their name comes from (towar means goods in Polish). Góry Towarne hide a cave…
Churches & monasteries
Nurzec-Stacja
Holy Mount Grabarka (say "grah-BAR-kah") is the most important Eastern Orthodox pilgrimage site in Poland, a wooded hill near the town of Siemiatycze in the Podlasie region of northeastern Poland. Around its church stand thousands of woode…
Nature
Stara Wieś
Here some of the water flows out of a rock fissure on the bank, while the rest wells up from the bottom of a pool – an old oxbow of the River Warta. Granatowe Źródła ("Navy Blue Springs"), between Troniny and Stara Wieś, are the only examp…
Monuments & mounds
Warszawa
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw (Grób Nieznanego Żołnierza) is Poland's most important national memorial: a symbolic grave for all soldiers who died for the country, set beneath the surviving arcade of the Saxon Palace on Piłsuds…
Viewpoints
Jerzmanowice
Maps still label it "Hill 502", although newer surveys from the early 1990s give its height as about 513 m. Skała 502 in Jerzmanowice, also called Grodzisko, is the highest point of the Olkusz Upland and the second highest summit of the wh…
Historic sites
Olkusz
Less than 3 km west of Olkusz town centre lie the remains of a medieval stronghold: a deep moat, two rings of earthen ramparts and the ruins of the Gothic Church of St John the Baptist. This is where the town's story begins – before Olkusz…
Historic sites
Sobótka
The Będkowice Archaeological Reserve lies at the foot of Mount Ślęża, by the road from Strzegomiany to Będkowice in the Sobótka municipality. It protects an early medieval settlement complex of the Ślężanie tribe: a hillfort from the 8th–1…
Historic sites
Wiślica
The Wiślica hillfort (in Polish "grodzisko", roughly "gro-JEES-ko"), also called the hillfort "in the meadows", is an early medieval archaeological site on a low island ringed by the Nida River and its old channels, a few hundred meters so…
Mountains & peaks
Żabnica
Hala Boracza is a grassy saddle at around 860 m in the Żywiec Beskids, above the villages of Żabnica and Milówka – and on it stands a PTTK mountain hut with a history unlike any other in these mountains. It was built by the Jewish sports c…
Technical monuments
Wrocław
Wrocław Market Hall (Hala Targowa, say "HAH-lah tar-GOH-vah") is a working food market that has been trading since 1908 – and a landmark of early concrete engineering. Behind its red-brick facade, giant reinforced-concrete arches soar over…
Nature
Tarnowskie Góry
The Friedrich Mine washing tip in Tarnowskie Góry (Hałda popłuczkowa, pronounced roughly "TAR-nov-skyeh GOO-ri") is a flat-topped, orange mound of mining waste that has been part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017. It is the leftov…
Nature
Ojców
A lone, slender limestone spire rises from a meadow at the mouth of the Wrześnik ravine, and in autumn it looks like a burning torch – it is wrapped in Virginia creeper whose leaves turn an intense red. Along with Hercules' Club and the Kr…
Other
Gdańsk
St. Dominic's Fair in Gdańsk (Jarmark św. Dominika) is Poland's largest open-air trade and cultural festival: every summer, for more than three weeks, the streets of Gdańsk's historic Main Town fill with stalls, stages and food stands. Wit…
Other
Katowice
Jarmark na Nikiszu is a December craft market on Plac Wyzwolenia in Nikiszowiec, a historic mining estate in Katowice. It has been held since 2008 on the first weekend after Barbórka, the miners' feast of St Barbara, and draws on that trad…
Other
Katowice
The Katowice Christmas Market (Jarmark Bożonarodzeniowy, roughly "YAR-mark bo-zho-na-ro-dze-NYO-vih") transforms the Main Square of Katowice, the capital of Poland's Silesia region, into a glowing winter village of wooden stalls, Ferris wh…
Other
Żarki
Żarki in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland has one of the liveliest markets in the region. The town hall calls it an "open-air supermarket": every Saturday up to 10,000 customers come here, choosing from around 500 stalls on a 1.5-hectare squa…
Nature
Olsztyn
Behind a low opening in a limestone rock, right beside the red Eagles' Nests Trail, lies a chamber of about 10 × 8 m filled with thick flowstone columns up to 1.5 m tall. According to cavers' descriptions, no other cave in the Polish Jura…
Gardens
Szczecin
Jasne Błonia (roughly "YAS-neh BWOH-nya", meaning "Bright Meadows") and Kasprowicz Park form Szczecin's best-loved green space: a broad lawn lined with rows of plane trees that flows into a large park around Lake Rusałka. Jasne Błonia is h…
Lakes
Jeziory
Lake Góreckie (Jezioro Góreckie, say "yeh-ZHOR-oh goo-RETS-kyeh") is the best-known lake in Wielkopolski National Park, about 15 km south of Poznań in western Poland. Long, L-shaped and ringed by steep wooded banks, it holds two small isla…