Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Technical monuments
Zakopane
The Kasprowy Wierch cable car is Poland's most famous mountain lift: in about 20 minutes it carries you from Kuźnice, on the edge of Zakopane, to 1,959 m (6,427 ft), just below the summit of Kasprowy Wierch in the Tatra Mountains. Running…
Technical monuments
Chorzów
The Elka Cable Car (Kolej Linowa "Elka") in Chorzów is a gondola-and-chairlift line gliding over Silesian Park, one of Europe's largest urban parks, in the heart of the Katowice metropolitan area. It links Silesian Stadium, the Legendia am…
Technical monuments
Racibórz
In the north wing of the Piast Castle in Racibórz, beer has been brewed for more than 160 years – and the tradition of a ducal brewery at the castle goes back to the 16th century. The Castle Brewery (Browar Zamkowy) is one of the oldest wo…
Technical monuments
Jędrzejów
The Świętokrzyska Narrow-Gauge Railway, better known as the "Ciuchcia Express Ponidzie", is a heritage line running from Jędrzejów towards the Nida river. The tourist train rolls through the meadows, fields and woods of Ponidzie, and the f…
Technical monuments
Gdynia
Built at the Gdańsk Shipyard, this sail training ship was meant to be the prototype for a series of vessels for Soviet maritime schools — instead it became the successor to the legendary Dar Pomorza, "built through the efforts of Polish yo…
Technical monuments
Rydzyna
In the late 18th century, 24 windmills were turning in Rydzyna. Today just one remains: a wooden post mill named "Józef", standing on Młyńska Góra (Mill Hill) on Wyspiańskiego Street, among the houses of a residential estate. It is the onl…
Technical monuments
Gdańsk
A red-brick building with a 50-metre clock tower is the first thing most people see when they arrive in Gdańsk by train. Gdańsk Główny station, built in 1894–1900, is one of the city's best-known landmarks, and in front of its entrance sta…
Technical monuments
Katowice
In front of Katowice station stand 16 reinforced-concrete "chalices" – columns that flare upwards like concrete flowers. They echo the famous Brutalist station of 1972, demolished in 2010–2011 despite protests from architects. Today's stat…
Technical monuments
Ełk
The Ełk Narrow Gauge Railway (Ełk is pronounced roughly "ewk") is a heritage line that takes visitors from the Masurian town of Ełk to Sypitki through forests, villages and lakeshores. It is the only active narrow gauge railway in Warmia-M…
Technical monuments
Katowice
The Szyb Wilson Gallery at 1 Oswobodzenia Street in Katowice's Janów-Nikiszowiec district occupies the former miners' assembly hall and bathhouse of the Wilson shafts of the Wieczorek coal mine. It has been open since 2001, and with nearly…
Technical monuments
Łęknica
The Babina Former Mine Geo-Trail near Łęknica (pronounced "wenk-NEE-tsah") is a free forest trail past dozens of colorful lakes that formed in the pits of an old lignite mine on Poland's western border with Germany. It lies within the Musk…
Technical monuments
Gniezno
The Gniezno Narrow-Gauge Railway is one of the oldest small railways in Greater Poland – its history began in 1884. The former network linked Gniezno with Witkowo, Powidz and Anastazewo; today trains run seasonally only on a short section…
Technical monuments
Bytom
The Upper Silesian Narrow Gauge Railway, known locally as the "rosbanka", is a historic line with a track gauge of 785 mm that now carries tourists on a 21 km route from Bytom via Tarnowskie Góry to Miasteczko Śląskie. The network was buil…
Technical monuments
Wrocław
Wrocław Market Hall (Hala Targowa, say "HAH-lah tar-GOH-vah") is a working food market that has been trading since 1908 – and a landmark of early concrete engineering. Behind its red-brick facade, giant reinforced-concrete arches soar over…
Technical monuments
Piechowice
At the Julia glassworks in Piechowice, crystal is still made by hand: glassmakers blow and shape molten glass at the furnaces, and cutters decorate the finished pieces. Visitors walk through the production hall with a guide and watch the w…
Technical monuments
Tarnowskie Góry
Industriada (pronounced "in-doos-tree-AH-dah") is an annual industrial heritage festival in Poland's Silesian Voivodeship, the region around Katowice. Each June, dozens of historic coal and silver mines, ironworks, breweries, railway sites…
Technical monuments
Bydgoszcz
The Bydgoszcz Canal (Kanał Bydgoski, roughly "KAH-now bid-GOSS-kee") is the oldest working artificial waterway in Poland, a canal opened in 1774 that links the Vistula River basin with the Oder through the city of Bydgoszcz. For visitors,…
Technical monuments
Gołdap
At the top of Piękna Góra near Gołdap there is a café in which the whole room slowly turns on its axis. A full rotation takes about 50 minutes, so over one coffee and a slice of cake you can take in the entire panorama: Gołdap and its lake…
Technical monuments
Ustroń
The Czantoria Chairlift in Ustroń (pronounced roughly "chan-TOR-yah" and "OOS-tron") is a year-round chairlift that carries you in 8–10 minutes up to the Stokłosica meadow (851 m / 2,792 ft) on the slopes of Wielka Czantoria in the Silesia…
Technical monuments
Bielsko-Biała
Yellow glass-sided gondolas gliding over the forest from the Olszówka district have been a familiar sight in Bielsko-Biała for generations. The Szyndzielnia cable car opened on 21 December 1953 as Poland's first gondola lift and the first…
Technical monuments
Rogów
The heritage train from Rogów never goes faster than 40 km/h, and many of its wagons still carry the names of the sugar factories they came from. The Rogów – Rawa – Biała narrow-gauge railway is the only heritage narrow-gauge line in Łódź…
Technical monuments
Poznań
For many Poznań residents, the narrow-gauge train along Lake Malta is a first childhood memory – and its story is older than the lake's leisure park itself. Maltanka started in 1956 as a children's railway in the Dębina district and moved…
Technical monuments
Kowary
The Podgórze Uranium Mine (pod-GOO-zheh) in Kowary is a former uranium mine in Poland's Giant Mountains where ore really was extracted in the 1950s — and where you now explore the tunnels by the light of miners' lamps. Highlights include a…
Technical monuments
gmina Stronie Śląskie
The Kletno Uranium Mine (say "KLET-no") is an underground tourist route in a former adit on the slopes of the Śnieżnik Massif in the Sudetes, southwest Poland. Between 1948 and 1953, under Soviet supervision, uranium ore was mined here for…