Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Landmarks
Sucha Beskidzka
Above the entrance hangs a painted horse – just like the inn sign in Adam Mickiewicz's ballad "Pani Twardowska". The Rzym Inn (Karczma „Rzym”, literally "Rome") in Sucha Beskidzka is an 18th-century wooden inn closing the eastern side of t…
Landmarks
Kraków
Of the more than three kilometres of medieval walls that once ringed Kraków, only about 200 metres survive – thanks to one professor who argued in the city senate that the walls protected St Mary's Basilica from nasty winds blowing in from…
Landmarks
Grodków
The tower of Grodków town hall survived the fire that destroyed most of the town in 1833, and seven years later a new building was raised around it. Today the late Neoclassical town hall of 1840 stands in the middle of the market square of…
Landmarks
Kołobrzeg
With its battlements, corner towers and red-brick walls it looks like a small castle, yet it was built from the start as the seat of the town council. Kołobrzeg Town Hall was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the most celebrated archite…
Landmarks
Grudziądz
From the Vistula, the granaries of Grudziądz look like a brick defensive wall: several storeys high, with small windows and massive buttresses. From the town side the very same buildings have only one or two floors – because they stand on…
Landmarks
Opole
The Piast Tower in Opole is a Gothic brick castle tower on Ostrówek island – one of the oldest monuments of defensive architecture in Poland and a symbol of the city, whose outline appears in TV broadcasts of the song festival from the nea…
Landmarks
Częstochowa
Holy Virgin Mary Avenue (Aleja Najświętszej Maryi Panny, known locally simply as "Aleje") is the grand central boulevard of Częstochowa (say "chen-stoh-HOH-vah"), Poland's great pilgrimage city. Some 44 m wide, with a tree-lined pedestrian…
Landmarks
Sławków
In August 1697 King Augustus II the Strong feasted at the Sławków inn and — so the story goes — broke a silver cup with his bare hands in front of the guests. The wooden inn at Rynek 2 still stands and still feeds visitors: a restaurant ha…
Landmarks
Żnin
In the middle of Plac Wolności in Żnin stands a massive Gothic tower that everyone calls the Baszta, or bastion – although it was never part of the town walls. It is the only surviving piece of the medieval town hall, built so that the tow…
Landmarks
Kołobrzeg
Lontowa Tower on ul. Dubois is the only part of Kołobrzeg's medieval fortifications to survive intact. The Gothic brick tower is almost 18 metres high and stands in the town centre, by the former Prussian Square (today Słowiański Square).…
Landmarks
Kraków
St. Florian's Gate in Kraków (Polish: Brama Floriańska, "BRAH-mah flo-RYAN-skah") is the medieval city gate and tower that marks the northern entrance to the Old Town at the top of Floriańska Street. Together with a surviving stretch of th…
Landmarks
Lublin
The Grodzka Gate in Lublin, also known as the Jewish Gate, once linked the Christian Old Town with the Jewish quarter at the foot of the castle. Today it houses the Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre, one of Poland's most respected memory in…
Landmarks
Lublin
The Kraków Gate (Brama Krakowska) is the landmark everyone associates with Lublin: a 14th-century Gothic city gate topped with a Baroque dome, standing where the main street, Krakowskie Przedmieście, meets the Old Town. Inside is the Museu…
Landmarks
Szydłów
The Kraków Gate in Szydłów ("SHID-woof") is the only one of the town's three medieval gates still standing, and the emblem of a small town often called the "Polish Carcassonne." This 14th-century stone gate tower, crowned by a Renaissance…
Landmarks
Malbork
Of the entire ring of Malbork's medieval town walls, only two gates survive: St Mary's Gate and the Potters' Gate. Both are Gothic towers from the second half of the 14th century that came through sieges, fires, the French and the fighting…
Landmarks
Szczecin
The Harbour Gate (Brama Portowa) is a Baroque fortress gate that now stands alone in the middle of one of Szczecin's busiest squares. The city's official tourism portal calls it the most impressive Baroque fortress gate in West Pomerania.…
Landmarks
Elbląg
The Market Gate in Elbląg (Brama Targowa, sometimes listed as the Market Tower) is the only surviving gate of the city's medieval walls and its best-loved symbol. The 26-meter Gothic brick tower with its clock closes the northern end of th…
Landmarks
Węgrów
At the end of Ewangelicka Street in Węgrów stands a larch-wood church which — according to a tradition still alive today — was built in a single day. Around it lies the old Protestant cemetery with late 17th-century gravestones of Scottish…
Landmarks
Kraków
Rakowicki Cemetery (Cmentarz Rakowicki, roughly "rah-ko-VEETS-kee") in Kraków is the city's oldest municipal cemetery and one of Poland's most important burial grounds. Spread over more than 42 hectares of tree-lined avenues, it holds pain…
Landmarks
Busko-Zdrój
Behind a stone wall on ul. Widuchowska, about a kilometre east of the centre of Busko-Zdrój, lies the cemetery of the spa town's former Jewish community. Not a single gravestone remains in its original place – the surviving matzevot have b…
Landmarks
Sandomierz
The plans for this college in Sandomierz were drawn in Rome, and one of the designs is still kept today in the National Library of France in Paris. The long white building on the edge of the Vistula escarpment has housed a school since 160…
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…
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…
Landmarks
Czerna
The Devil's Bridge in Czerna is the ruin of a stone bridge built in the 17th century by the hermits of a Carmelite hermitage over the stream in the Eliaszówka Valley. Resembling a Roman aqueduct, the structure is now a forest-covered ruin…