Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Budzistowo
The Church of St John the Baptist in Budzistowo measures just 8 × 5 m, yet it is the oldest brick church in Central Pomerania and the only surviving monument of early medieval Kołobrzeg. It stands in a village that for centuries carried th…
Churches & monasteries
Poraj
The church in Choroń stands on the ridge of the westernmost hill in the area, which is why its tower can be seen from many points in the northern Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The road beside it is one of the best viewpoints over the Poraj Re…
Churches & monasteries
Dobczyce
In the central arch of the bell tower beside St John the Baptist's Church hangs the bell "Jan", cast in 1504 in the reign of King Alexander Jagiellon – the only Dobczyce bell to survive the Second World War. Around its shoulder runs a Germ…
Churches & monasteries
Gniezno
On the vault corbels a fox stalks some geese, a pelican feeds its young, and St Menas with his camels, a 3rd-century martyr, looks down from a corbel – a reminder of the Middle Eastern roots of the order that once ran this church. The Goth…
Churches & monasteries
Malbork
The Gothic parish church of the old town stands right below the castle, beside the Nogat, and is one of the few medieval buildings in Malbork that survived 1945. There has been a parish here since the late 13th century, and the present hal…
Churches & monasteries
Międzyrzecz
The parish church of St John the Baptist at ul. Spokojna 6 is the only surviving Gothic church building in Międzyrzecz and a hall church that served as a model for the parish churches in Wągrowiec and Wronki. Its biggest surprise lay under…
Churches & monasteries
Olsztyn
The stones of Olsztyn's church were, until the early 18th century, part of the castle walls on the neighbouring rock. The Baroque Church of St John the Baptist was built in 1722–1729 from material taken from the ruins. In its crypt, behind…
Churches & monasteries
Orneta
The Church of St. John the Baptist in Orneta (or-NEH-ta) is a Gothic brick basilica with a 45 m tower, and it is one of the finest churches in the historic region of Warmia in northern Poland. Built of red brick, it stands out for its deco…
Churches & monasteries
Zduny
The Baroque church of St John the Baptist in Zduny was completed in 1733, yet it was not consecrated until 29 April 1951 – more than two centuries later. Its tower, with a sheet-metal cupola and two lanterns, is the landmark of this small…
Churches & monasteries
Pińczów
The church on Pińczów's market square is the burial place of Jan Łaski (John à Lasco) – Poland's greatest Reformation figure, who organised Protestant congregations in England and East Frisia. That is the paradox of this building: built fo…
Churches & monasteries
Goczałkowice-Zdrój
For more than two centuries the church in Goczałkowice was in Protestant hands: in 1569 Baron Karl von Promnitz, lord of Pszczyna (Pless), declared his whole estate Lutheran, and an independent Catholic parish was only restored in 1797. To…
Churches & monasteries
Kętrzyn
St. George's Basilica in Kętrzyn (say KENT-shin) is one of the best-preserved fortified churches in Masuria, the lake district of northeastern Poland. Its red-brick Gothic walls once formed part of the town's medieval defenses, and the bui…
Churches & monasteries
Baborów
The weathervane on the turret is cut with the date "1700" – the year building began. The wooden cemetery church of St Joseph in Baborów (listed in some heritage registers as the church of St Joseph and St Barbara) was built in 1700–1702 on…
Churches & monasteries
Kicin
From 1564 to 1574 the titular parish priest of Kicin was Jan Kochanowski, Poland's great Renaissance poet, then a canon of Poznań. Today's wooden church was built two centuries later, in 1749–1751, on a medieval hillfort just beyond Poznań…
Churches & monasteries
Międzygórze
The Stations of the Cross in this church were donated in the 18th century as votive offerings asking for rain, which had not fallen for three months. The wooden Church of St Joseph stands in the very centre of Międzygórze, above the road t…
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
Węglewo
The timber church of St Catherine of Alexandria in Węglewo, about 4 km north of Pobiedziska, is the youngest church on the Wooden Churches Trail around the Zielonka Forest – it has stood since 1818. Paradoxically it holds the oldest treasu…
Churches & monasteries
Jodłownik
In the centre of Wilkowisko, the largest village in the Jodłownik district, beside the Owsianka stream, stands the wooden Church of St Catherine of Alexandria – the third church on this site. Its predecessor was destroyed by a great fire o…
Churches & monasteries
Dubiecko
A few kilometres from Dubiecko, among old trees, stands a larch-wood church from 1763 that lay abandoned for almost 40 years – and that, after restoration, looks once more as it did when the Krasicki family founded it. St Catherine's in Ba…
Churches & monasteries
Brodnica
The Teutonic Order's chronicler Peter of Dusburg recorded that on 29 September 1298, during a Lithuanian raid, the parish priest of Brodnica was killed — and at that time a wooden church still stood on the site of today's parish church. Th…
Churches & monasteries
Bytów
A tall tower with an arcaded gallery rises above the centre of Bytów and can be seen from the castle hill. The church was built in the mid-19th century for the Lutheran community, modelled on St Matthew's Church in Berlin, and after the wa…
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
Gdańsk
St Catherine's Church in Gdańsk is the oldest parish church of the city's Old Town: a Gothic brick building with a Baroque spire, standing opposite the Great Mill. The great 17th-century astronomer Johannes Hevelius is commemorated here, a…