Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Every hour a trumpeter plays the hejnał, a short bugle call, from the taller tower of the basilica – and breaks it off mid-phrase. A few dozen metres below, in the chancel, stands the greatest work of Veit Stoss (Wit Stwosz in Polish): a l…
National parks
Smołdzino
Słowiński National Park (say "swo-VEEN-skee") on Poland's Baltic coast is famous for something you would not expect this far north: a field of moving sand dunes that drifts across the forest between the sea and two huge coastal lakes. It l…
Technical monuments
Bochnia
The Bochnia Salt Mine (pronounced roughly "BOH-hnyah") is Poland's oldest salt mine, worked from the mid-13th century — even earlier than its famous neighbor, Wieliczka. Since 2013 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Royal…
National parks
Zakopane
Tatra National Park (Tatrzański Park Narodowy) protects the Polish side of the Tatra Mountains, the highest range in the Carpathians and the only truly alpine landscape in Poland. Granite and limestone peaks, glacial lakes, deep valleys an…
Lakes
gmina Węgorzewo
Mamry is the second-largest lake in Poland: the whole complex of six connected lakes covers about 100 km² and holds 33 islands. They were once separate lakes linked by streams – only in the 16th and 17th centuries did the water rise by sev…
Landmarks
Kraków
Wawel Hill in Kraków is the limestone rise above the Vistula River where Polish kings lived, were crowned and were buried for more than five centuries. Crowned by the Royal Castle and Wawel Cathedral, it is Poland's most symbolic historic…
Castles
Kraków
Wawel Royal Castle (pronounced "VAH-vel") in Kraków is the former seat of Polish kings and the single most important historic site in southern Poland. Its Renaissance palace, wrapped around an arcaded courtyard, crowns a limestone hill abo…
Churches & monasteries
Warszawa
St. John's Archcathedral in Warsaw (Archikatedra św. Jana, roughly "ar-hee-kah-TED-rah svyen-TEH-go YAH-nah") is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Warsaw and one of Poland's national pantheons. It stands in the heart of the UNESCO-li…
Technical monuments
Augustów
The Augustów Canal (pronounced roughly "ow-GOOS-toof") is a 19th-century waterway in northeastern Poland that links the Vistula and Neman river basins, running from the Biebrza River through the lakes around Augustów to the Neman in Belaru…
Mountains & peaks
Zawoja
It has long been called the Mother of Bad Weather – and for good reason: on the dome of Diablak, sunshine can give way to fog and gale within an hour. Babia Góra is the highest peak of the Western Beskids and, outside the Tatras, the highe…
National parks
ustrzyki-gorne
Bieszczady National Park (Bieszczadzki Park Narodowy; say "byesh-CHAH-dee") in Poland's far southeastern corner is the country's largest mountain national park and its wildest. Here the Carpathians form rolling grassy ridges called połonin…
Nature
gmina Gryfino
More than fifty pine trees turn sharply sideways just above the ground, run almost horizontally for a while and then shoot straight up again. The Crooked Forest (Krzywy Las) near Gryfino was planted in the 1930s, and nobody knows for sure…
Museums
Czerna
Until 1805, ordinary worshippers were not allowed into this monastery: Czerna was a hermitage of the Discalced Carmelites, hidden in the forest and enclosed by a wall more than four kilometres long. Today the complex in the Eliaszówka Vall…
Churches & monasteries
Gdańsk
Locals call it the "Crown of Gdańsk". St Mary's Basilica, built in stages over more than 150 years (1346–1502), is the third-largest brick church in the world by volume, and its massive 82-metre tower rises above the rooftops of the Main T…
Cities & towns
Kraków
In 1949 work began on fields outside Kraków on a city built from scratch – for the people who would work in a gigantic steelworks. Nowa Huta ("New Steelworks") was meant to be a model socialist town without a church and with a central squa…
Technical monuments
Katowice
When a model of the planned Katowice arena appeared on the covers of European architecture magazines in 1960, the organising committee of the Rome Olympics asked to borrow it for an art exhibition. Eleven years later the "flying saucer" la…
National parks
miedzyzdroje
Wolin National Park (Woliński Park Narodowy; "voh-LEEN-skee") protects the central-western part of Wolin Island on Poland's Baltic coast: towering sea cliffs, beech forests on glacial hills, quiet lakes and the reed-filled delta of the Świ…
National parks
Zawoja
Babia Góra National Park (Babiogórski Park Narodowy; say "BAH-bya GOO-rah") protects a single, mighty mountain on the Polish–Slovak border: Babia Góra, the "Queen of the Beskids." Its summit, Diablak (1,725 m / 5,659 ft), is the highest po…
National parks
Osowiec-Twierdza
Biebrza National Park (Biebrzański Park Narodowy, roughly "bee-EB-zhah") in northeastern Poland is the country's largest national park and one of Europe's great wetland wildernesses. It protects the valley of the Biebrza River — vast peat…
Landmarks
Warszawa
When a statue of a king on a tall column went up in 1644 on the square outside the Kraków Gate, the papal nuncio protested: until then, only saints, Christ and the Virgin Mary had been raised so high. Sigismund's Column (Kolumna Zygmunta I…
National parks
Izabelin C
Kampinos National Park (Kampinoski Park Narodowy; say "kam-PEE-noss") protects the Kampinos Forest, a wild landscape of inland sand dunes and marshes that begins right at the edge of Warsaw. From the city limits you can reach the park head…
Technical monuments
Chorzów
The attendance record at the Silesian Stadium was not set by football but by speedway: on 2 September 1973 some 130,000 people turned up for the Individual Speedway World Championship. Today's arena in Chorzów's Silesian Park is smaller an…
Lakes
Łeba
Lake Łebsko ("WEP-sko") is the largest lake in Pomerania and the third largest in Poland, a shallow, wind-whipped expanse of water just behind the famous moving dunes of Słowiński National Park, between the resort of Łeba and the village o…
National parks
Urszulin
Polesie National Park ("poh-LEH-sheh") protects Poland's share of Polesie, the vast, flat land of bogs, fens and lakes that stretches on into Belarus and Ukraine. Set in eastern Poland's Lublin region, it feels far wilder than its size sug…