Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
Władysławowo
Between Jastrzębia Góra and Rozewie the coast is cut by a narrow ravine that takes you from the clifftop straight down to the beach. Lisi Jar – "Fox Ravine" – is only about 350 metres long, but in places it is 50 metres deep, and its slope…
Monuments & mounds
Bydgoszcz
The nude archer drawing her bow opposite the Polish Theatre is today the best-known symbol of Bydgoszcz, but for her first decades she was a local scandal. Between the wars the city council even voted to remove her. The bronze figure by th…
Monuments & mounds
Ślesin
On the road to Sompolno in Ślesin stands a Neoclassical triumphal arch that locals call Napoleon's Gate. It was built in 1811 (some sources say 1812) in honour of the French emperor, who had passed through Ślesin four years earlier. The Po…
Viewpoints
Maków Podhalański
Fields and meadows run almost to the summit here, so from the edge of the woods on Makowska Góra you can see Babia Góra, the Little Beskids and the hills rolling towards Kraków all at once. It is a modest hill right above the small town of…
Technical monuments
Łódź
Manufaktura in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is a vast 19th-century textile factory turned into the city's liveliest destination. Across 27 hectares (67 acres) of red-brick mills built by cotton magnate Izrael Poznański, you'll now find museums, a m…
Coast
Puck
In February 1920 General Józef Haller threw a platinum ring into the Bay of Puck – this was Poland's symbolic "wedding to the sea". More than a century later Puck's quays bring together three worlds: a fishing harbour, a yacht port and a n…
Landmarks
Warszawa
The Marszałkowska Residential District, known as MDM, is the grandest display of Socialist Realism in central Warsaw: monumental apartment blocks with arcades, attics and sculptures of workers lining Marszałkowska Street from Wilcza Street…
Monuments & mounds
Radziechowy
The stainless-steel cross on top of Matyska gleams in the sun and can be seen from far away. The hill (609 m above sea level) above Radziechowy, about 7 km south-west of Żywiec town centre, is the last distinct high point on a ridge of the…
Landmarks
Kazimierz Dolny
Mięćmierz ("MYENCH-myesh") is a former rafting and fishing village on the Vistula, now part of Kazimierz Dolny, famous for its thatched cottages and a wooden post mill perched on the riverbank escarpment. Tucked where three ravines meet, a…
Historic sites
Jedwabne
On the edge of Jedwabne, on ul. Krasickiego, stone blocks mark out a rectangle on the grass. It is the outline of the barn where the town's Jewish residents and Jews from nearby were burned alive on 10 July 1941. The 2001 memorial and the…
Zoos
Leszno
The Leszno Mini Zoo is a small, free zoological garden in Millennium Park on 17 Stycznia Street, with a domestic animal enclosure and paddocks tucked among old trees. The history of Leszno's menageries goes back to 1903, and the zoo has oc…
Old towns & squares
Gdynia
Gdynia's Modernist City Centre is Poland's newest UNESCO World Heritage Site: an entire downtown built between 1926 and 1939 around a brand-new seaport on the Baltic coast. Instead of a single monument, you get a walkable district of pale,…
Nature
Jastrzębik
The Henryk Świdziński Mofette, on the border of Jastrzębik and Złockie near Muszyna, is the largest and most productive mofette in Poland. Gas that is 95% carbon dioxide bubbles up constantly from the bed of the Złocki stream. An area of a…
Old towns & squares
Sopot
Monciak (say "MON-chak"), officially Bohaterów Monte Cassino Street, is the main pedestrian promenade of Sopot and one of the busiest spots on the whole Polish Baltic coast. The car-free street runs downhill from the railway station and St…
Landmarks
Opole
A green, openwork footbridge over the Młynówka is one of the best-known sights in Opole. Locals call it the Green Bridge or the Lovers' Bridge, but its official name – Most Groszowy, the Penny Bridge – recalls the days when crossing it cos…
Lakes
Wrocław
Grunwald Bridge in Wrocław (Most Grunwaldzki, roughly grun-VAHLD-skee; the city is VROTS-wahf) is a 1910 steel suspension bridge over the Oder River and one of the most photographed landmarks in this western Polish city. Its chunky granite…
Technical monuments
Bytów
Six brick arches on granite piers span the Boruja valley as if the builders had set out to give Bytów its own Roman aqueduct. The railway bridge of about 1884 is over 73 metres long and 16 metres high, and for years people said that no tra…
Technical monuments
Maurzyce
The modest steel truss over the little Słudwia River near Łowicz is the world's first welded road bridge. It was designed by Professor Stefan Bryła and opened on 12 August 1929. Because it was welded rather than riveted, the structure weig…
Technical monuments
Giżycko
The swing bridge in Giżycko (say "gee-ZHITS-ko") is a working piece of 19th-century engineering in the center of this lakeside town in north-eastern Poland. Built in 1898 over the Łuczański Canal, its roughly 100-ton steel span still turns…
Technical monuments
Warszawa
The neo-Renaissance towers at both ends of the bridge look like fortress gates, and for good reason: the tsarist military authorities insisted on them. Poniatowski Bridge, nicknamed Poniatoszczak by Varsovians, links Jerusalem Avenue (Alej…
Other
Wrocław
On the north-western edge of Wrocław a white pylon 122 metres high, the tallest in Poland, rises above the Oder. Hanging from it, the Rędziński Bridge carries the A8 motorway over the river and over Rędzin Island with its historic locks. I…
Landmarks
Wrocław
Tumski Bridge in Wrocław (say "TOOM-skee") is the green steel bridge that carries you across the Oder River onto Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island), the oldest part of the city. Known locally as the Lovers' Bridge, it frames the twin spires…
Other
Pyzdry
In Pyzdry, an ordinary flight of town steps leads from the hill with the former Franciscan friary down to the marina on the Warta – except that the risers are covered in a colourful mosaic made of more than 50,000 pieces. Around 50 steps o…
Other
Poznań
On the blank wall of a corner house on Rynek Śródecki stands a little street that isn't really there: a green cottage with a butcher in the doorway, a trumpeter perched on a red roof and a black cat creeping along the ridge. The three-dime…