Tripto Guide
Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
40 places
Nysa
Nysa, the residential city of the Wrocław bishops, was surrounded by brick fortifications **in the mid-14th century**, under Bishop Przecław of Pogorzela. The circuit comprised **four gates and twenty-eight bastions**; an outer second wall…
Paczków
Paczków in Opole Silesia is called the **Polish Carcassonne** — and for good reason. Stone walls from the 14th century encircle the town in a regular oval **1,200 metres** long, rising in places to **7 metres**, and of the original **24 ba…
Racibórz
Racibórz was surrounded by walls earlier than most towns of Upper Silesia: the first documented mention comes **from 1299**, when Duke Przemysław of Racibórz ordered the burgrave to build defensive walls. The circuit, about **1.8 kilometre…
Szydłów
Szydłów is sometimes called the **Polish Carcassonne** — just like Paczków. The Gothic fortifications **from the 14th century** run for **700 metres**; battlements and arrow slits survive, and the circuit is longer than the town walls of K…
Stara Wieś
Wieluń is one of the twenty-five towns that were surrounded by defensive walls under **Casimir the Great**. Together with the Eagles' Nests castles it formed a belt of fortifications guarding the south-western border of the Crown, stretchi…
Ząbkowice Śląskie
Ząbkowice Śląskie gained its defences in two stages: the first walls, partly timber-and-earth and partly of rough stone, were raised at the end of the **13th century**, and in the 14th century, under **Bolko II of Ziębice**, they were cons…
Strzelce Opolskie
Strzelce Opolskie, whose history reaches back to the **13th century**, was surrounded by walls about **1 kilometre** long. The town lay on the trade route **Wrocław–Opole–Kraków**, and the course of that route determined the line of the de…
Świdnica
Świdnica, the medieval capital of the **duchy of Świdnica-Jawor**, was one of the best-fortified towns in Silesia. The first mention of its fortifications comes from **1285**, when Duke Henry IV Probus obliged the Jews of Świdnica to stand…
Wałbrzych
Half a kilometre of concrete corridors and halls, carved 50 metres beneath the Honour Courtyard of the third-largest castle in Poland. The underground of Książ is an unfinished Second World War project, opened to visitors only in 2019 — an…
Piekary Śląskie
On the edge of Dobieszowice, just beyond the bed of the Brynica, you can spot a low concrete block crowned with an armoured dome that has been blending into the local fields for decades. This is heavy combat bunker No. 52 „Wesoła”, a link…
gmina Niegowa
On the top of Zamkowa rock, north of the buildings of Łutowiec in the commune of Niegowa, faint remains of a medieval watchtower have survived. Of the masonry stronghold a section of wall **0.6 metres** thick and **4.5 metres** long remain…
gmina Niegowa
Between the castles of Bobolice and Olsztyn, on the top of a solitary rock around **400 m above sea level**, a defensive watchtower was erected in **1370–1391**, whose remains lie near the village of Suliszowice in the commune of Żarki. Th…
Kołobrzeg
From **1653** to **1872** Kołobrzeg was a fortress town; it served as a stronghold again in **1944–1945**, at the end of the Second World War. The fortress has not survived in its entirety, but its elements scattered across the town and po…
gmina Słońsk
Kostrzyn Fortress stands in Kostrzyn nad Odrą, almost on the Polish-German border. Fortification of the site began around the mid-**16th century**, modelled on Italian-style fortresses; over time the stronghold became a masterpiece of the…
Prudnik
Prudnik, founded under Magdeburg law in **1279**, is one of the oldest towns of Upper Silesia. As early as the **14th century** it was surrounded by defensive walls with two gates: the Upper Gate, known as the Nysa Gate, and the Lower Gate…
Prudnik
Głuchołazy owe their fortifications to Wrocław bishop Przecław of Pogorzela, who around **1350** had the town surrounded by walls **5 metres** high and **2 metres** thick. Of the defensive structures it is chiefly the Upper Gate Tower that…