Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Komańcza
On the evening of 13 September 2006 one of the most remarkable wooden churches of the Carpathians burnt down in Komańcza, together with its iconostasis of 1832. Only the bell tower survived. The next day the Orthodox Archbishop of Przemyśl…
Churches & monasteries
Muszyna
The wooden church in Złockie does not look like a typical Lemko church. Instead of three towers in a row, it has a cross-shaped plan and a tall octagonal drum with a dome – a pattern foreign to the Lemko region but popular in Russia and th…
Churches & monasteries
Krynica-Zdrój
On the road from Grybów to Krynica-Zdrój, in the valley of the Mostysza stream, stands a church darkened by its shingles and crowned with three silvery onion domes. This is the former Greek Catholic church of St Michael the Archangel in Po…
Churches & monasteries
Puchły
The Orthodox Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Puchły (say "POOH-hwih") is one of the most photogenic wooden churches in Poland. Painted a vivid blue and topped with a cluster of onion domes, it stands in a tiny village in t…
Churches & monasteries
Komańcza
In the valley of the Rzepedka stream, a tributary of the Osława, stands the wooden Greek Catholic Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker from 1824 – a typical Eastern Lemko church with three onion domes and a free-standing bell tower. It s…
Churches & monasteries
Komańcza
The wooden Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God in Szczawne stands on a small rise above the Osława valley, by the road to Komańcza. Built in 1888–1889 as a Greek Catholic church, it now serves the Orthodox faithful. It h…
Churches & monasteries
Trześcianka
The green wooden Orthodox church of St Michael the Archangel, with a bulbous dome above the entrance and an onion-domed turret over the nave, is the best-known building in Trześcianka, one of the three villages on the Land of Open Shutters…
Churches & monasteries
Juchnowiec Kościelny
The small Orthodox Chapel of St Michael the Archangel in Wojszki has a surprising pedigree: it was funded in 1865 by the Governor-General of Vilnius, Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed "the Hangman" for his brutal repression after the January Upr…
Churches & monasteries
Kleszczele
This white Orthodox church with blue onion domes in the centre of Kleszczele stands on the site of a former Catholic church and was partly built from its timber. The Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was consecrated in 1877, and…
Churches & monasteries
Szczebrzeszyn
The white Orthodox church on ul. Sądowa looks modest, but it is the oldest sacred building owned by the Polish Orthodox Church. Its walls date from the 16th century and stand on the foundations of an even older church, and its history conn…
Churches & monasteries
Turzańsk
These wooden churches, known in Polish as cerkwie, are what remains of the Lemko and Boyko villages that filled the Osława and San valleys before the Second World War. The Lemkos and Boykos are Ruthenian highland communities of the Carpath…
Museums
Rabsztyn
This whitewashed wooden cottage from 1862 is where Antoni Kocjan was born – the designer whose gliders made up half of all those built in Poland in the 1930s, and during the war a key figure in uncovering Germany's V-2 rockets. The house w…
Museums
Koniaków
Inside a wooden house in the Szańce part of Koniaków, the highest village in the Silesian Voivodeship, hangs a trombita more than 11 metres long. According to the regional tourism portal it is probably the longest instrument of its kind in…
Mountains & peaks
Smerek
Chatka Puchatka ("KHAHT-kah poo-KHAHT-kah", Polish for Pooh's Hut, named after The House at Pooh Corner) is the highest tourist building in the Bieszczady Mountains of southeastern Poland. Perched at about 1,228 m on the open grassland rid…
Thermal baths & water parks
Chochołów
Chochołowskie Termy (roughly "ho-ho-WOV-skyeh TER-mi") in the village of Chochołów is the largest thermal pool complex in Poland's Podhale region, the highland area at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. It offers about 4,500 m² (48,000 sq ft…
Landmarks
Kazimierz Dolny
The former synagogue at ul. Lubelska 4 and the neighbouring Little Market Square with its wooden market stalls are the heart of the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz Dolny, a few steps from the main Market Square. The late Baroque synagogue, bui…
Churches & monasteries
Siemiatycze
On Zaszkolna Street in Siemiatycze stands a massive white building with a tall hipped roof — the former synagogue that Princess Anna Jabłonowska funded for the town's Jews as compensation for the cemetery they lost when the town was rebuil…
Museums
Mosina
On the shore of Lake Góreckie stands a white palace that now serves nature, though it was built for one of the worst criminals of occupied Greater Poland. Arthur Greiser, the Reich Governor of the Wartheland, built his residence here durin…
Churches & monasteries
Ląd
From the road along the Warta you first see two openwork towers and a huge dome – the Baroque crown of an abbey that in the 18th century was considered the oldest Cistercian monastery in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Behind this faça…
Churches & monasteries
Owińska
In 1806 Napoleon arrived at the Cistercian convent in Owińska – and, according to legend and literature, an attempt on his life was made right here. Eight kilometres from Poznań's city limits stands a Baroque complex with the twin-towered…
Landmarks
Bolków
A pale tower with four slender corner turrets is the second landmark of the Bolków skyline after the castle. It stands at the junction of Kamiennogórska and Niepodległości streets, a few steps from the market square. This is the former Pro…
Churches & monasteries
Olsztynek
The Gothic church in the centre of Olsztynek burned at least three times, lost its vault in 1914 and was almost completely destroyed at the end of the Second World War. Yet it still stands – one of the oldest buildings in town and, in summ…
Nature
Wierzchowie
The Kluczwoda Valley (pronounced roughly "klooch-VO-dah"), also called the Wierzchówka Valley, is one of the eight "Kraków Valleys" – a winding wooded gorge lined with white limestone crags, the scant ruins of a medieval castle and the lon…
Museums
Szklarska Poręba
The Carl and Gerhart Hauptmann House in Szklarska Poręba (SHKLAR-ska po-REM-ba) is a museum in the former home of two German writers, the Hauptmann brothers. Around 1900 it was the heart of an artists' colony in what was then Schreiberhau.…