Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Toruń
St. Mary's Church in Toruń, properly the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a vast Gothic former Franciscan church on the north-west corner of the Old Town Square. It has no tower at all, yet inside it opens into a hal…
Museums
Toruń
Młyn Wiedzy (say "mwin VYED-zih," meaning "Mill of Knowledge") is Toruń's hands-on science center, set inside the restored red-brick Richter Mills on ul. Łokietka. Instead of glass cases, you get exhibits to spin, push and experiment with,…
Technical monuments
Bydgoszcz
The Rother Mills (Młyny Rothera, roughly "MWIN-ih ROH-teh-rah") in Bydgoszcz are a restored 19th-century industrial mill complex on Mill Island, right in the city center. Today the brick and half-timbered buildings house a science and cult…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
The Museum of Soap and History of Dirt (Muzeum Mydła i Historii Brudu) in Bydgoszcz is one of Poland's quirkiest museums and a genuinely fun stop in the city's compact Old Town. Instead of glass cases, you get a hands-on workshop where you…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
The Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum (Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego) is the main museum of Bydgoszcz, Poland, spread across several historic buildings downtown and on Mill Island. Its branches cover Polish painting, the larges…
Museums
Toruń
The Tony Halik Travelers' Museum (Muzeum Podróżników, "moo-ZEH-oom pod-roo-ZHNEE-kov") in Toruń is a small, colorful museum devoted to one of Poland's best-known TV explorers, who was born in this city, and to journeys across Latin America…
Museums
Toruń
The House Under the Star (Kamienica pod Gwiazdą, roughly "kah-mee-EN-ee-tsah pod gvee-AZ-dohn") is one of the most striking buildings on Toruń's Old Town Market Square and home to the Museum of Asian Art. Behind a Baroque facade covered in…
Museums
Toruń
The Museum of Toruń Gingerbread is a branch of the District Museum in Toruń (say "TOR-oon"), opened in 2015 in the former Gustav Weese gingerbread factory on ul. Strumykowa, at the edge of the UNESCO-listed Old Town. It is an interactive,…
Museums
Toruń
The Toruń Fortress Museum (Muzeum Twierdzy Toruń, "moo-ZEH-oom TFYER-dzih TOR-oon") is the newest branch of the city's District Museum, set inside the Chełmno Gate Barracks, a 19th-century Prussian barracks built into the earthen ramparts…
Museums
Brodnica
Brodnica Museum has no single building. Its collections are spread across three historic sites in the old town: the cellars of a Teutonic Knights' castle, a medieval town gate and a granary more than four hundred years old. A visit is real…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
The Land Forces Museum (Muzeum Wojsk Lądowych) in Bydgoszcz is a state museum devoted to Poland's land forces, telling the military story of Pomerania and Kuyavia from 18th-century uprisings through World War II to the Cold War. Outside st…
Museums
Włocławek
For almost 120 years Włocławek lived off faience – painted plates, jugs and vases became the city's calling card. In the main building of the Museum of the Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Lands you can see 432 pieces from the town's former factories,…
Museums
Żnin
The Pałuki Land Museum (Muzeum Ziemi Pałuckiej) in Żnin is the main museum of Pałuki, a small historic region between Greater Poland and Kuyavia in central Poland. Its headquarters occupy the red-brick former town hall of 1906 on Żnin's ma…
Other
Bydgoszcz
The Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz, Poland, is the city's opera house on the Brda River, instantly recognizable by its three white drum-shaped "circles." Its construction famously dragged on for more than 34 years, and today it's one of Poland's…
Museums
Golub-Dobrzyń
In the manor house at Szafarnia the teenage Frédéric Chopin spent his summer holidays in 1824 and 1825. Here he first encountered real folk music, and he wrote funny letters home to his parents in the form of a newspaper – the "Szafarnia C…
Palaces
Lubostroń
Lubostroń Palace (roughly "loo-BOS-tron") is a Neoclassical country house built in 1795–1800 in the Pałuki region of central Poland and modeled on Palladio's famous Villa Rotonda near Vicenza. Set in a 40-hectare English-style landscape pa…
Palaces
Ostromecko
The Ostromecko Palaces (say "os-tro-METS-ko") are a pair of historic residences on a bluff above the Vistula River, about 14–15 km east of Bydgoszcz in north-central Poland. The Baroque-Rococo Old Palace holds a celebrated collection of hi…
Museums
Toruń
The Toruń Planetarium (officially the Center for Space Popularization "Planetarium – Toruń") is one of the most visited things to do in Toruń, the city where Nicolaus Copernicus was born. It drew more than 290,000 visitors in 2022. Shows r…
Landmarks
Toruń
The Old Town Hall in Toruń (pronounced roughly "TOR-oon") is the Gothic heart of one of Poland's best-preserved medieval cities, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. For centuries this single brick building housed the city council, the…
Landmarks
Chełmno
The white town hall in the middle of a vast market square is Chełmno's calling card and one of the finest Renaissance buildings in northern Poland. On its west wall hangs an iron rod 432.5 centimetres long – the standard measure of length…
Churches & monasteries
Skępe
The sanctuary in Skępe is a late-Gothic Bernardine church and friary with four wings of Baroque cloisters, born of a vision during a plague in 1495. The small statue venerated here, Our Lady Expecting, shows Mary awaiting a child, which is…
Landmarks
Bydgoszcz
The Granaries on the Brda River (Spichrze nad Brdą) are the classic postcard view of Bydgoszcz (say "BID-gosh-ch"): three half-timbered grain warehouses with steep red roofs, standing right at the water's edge on Grodzka Street. They recal…
Technical monuments
Bydgoszcz
The Bydgoszcz Water Tower (Wieża ciśnień, roughly "VYEH-zha CHEESH-nyen") is a red-brick neo-Gothic tower from 1900 standing on the escarpment above the Old Town. Today it houses the Water Supply Museum and, at the top, a viewing gallery w…
Churches & monasteries
Chełmno
On the very edge of the escarpment above the Vistula valley stands a convent that has belonged in turn to Cistercian nuns, Benedictine nuns and the Sisters of Charity since the 13th century. Its brick gables and tower shape the skyline of…