Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Szydłowiec
Four centuries ago someone carved a knight in armour, buildings with pennants and a house topped with a ball into the sandstone blocks of Szydłowiec's parish church. This graffiti from around 1600 is just one reason to walk all the way rou…
Churches & monasteries
Brochów
The Church of St. Roch and St. John the Baptist in Brochów (BRO-hoof) is a fortified Renaissance church on the Bzura River where Frédéric Chopin was baptized in 1810. With three massive round towers and defensive walls, it looks more like…
Museums
Warszawa
On the edge of the Vistula escarpment in Mokotów stands a white domed palace modelled on Palladio's Villa Rotonda. Królikarnia is now the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw, and around it lies…
Museums
Warszawa
The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw is the world's largest museum devoted to the composer, set in the Baroque Ostrogski Castle on a bluff above the Vistula valley. Its multimedia exhibition follows Chopin from his Warsaw childhood to his…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Polish History in Warsaw (Muzeum Historii Polski) is one of Poland's largest museums, housed in a huge new building inside the Warsaw Citadel. Its mission is to tell a thousand years of Polish history with a focus on the coun…
Museums
Warszawa
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw tells the thousand-year story of Jewish life in Poland, from medieval merchants to the present day, and is one of the most important museums in Europe. It stands in Muranów, the heart of…
Museums
Warszawa
The National Museum in Warsaw (Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, often shortened to MNW) is one of Poland's largest museums and the biggest art collection in the capital. It spans ancient Egypt and the medieval wall paintings of Faras in Nubia,…
Museums
Warszawa
The Neon Museum in Warsaw (Neon Muzeum) is a private museum that rescues and displays Polish illuminated signs from the communist era: the glowing letters of cafés, cinemas and department stores that once lit up the country's streets at ni…
Museums
Warszawa
The Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) is the place to understand the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 — the single largest military effort by any European resistance movement in World War II, when the Polish underground Home Arm…
Museums
Opinogóra Górna
The Museum of Romanticism in Opinogóra (Muzeum Romantyzmu w Opinogórze) is housed in the Krasiński family's neo-Gothic palace, set in an English-style park of about 21 ha. The estate is tied to Zygmunt Krasiński, one of the three great bar…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, known as MSN) is the newest of the city's major cultural institutions. Since October 2024 it has occupied a striking white building at Marszałkowska 103, right beside the Palac…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Warsaw (Muzeum Warszawy, pronounced "MOO-zeh-oom var-SHAH-vih") is the Polish capital's main city history museum, housed in eleven connected townhouses on the Old Town Market Square. Instead of a classic timeline, its main ex…
Museums
Warszawa
The Polish Army Museum in Warsaw (Muzeum Wojska Polskiego) holds the largest collection of military history in Poland, and since 2023 it has been housed in a new building inside the Warsaw Citadel. Its main exhibition, "1000 Years of Polis…
Museums
Warszawa
In the south-west wing of the Palace of Culture and Science stands the oldest car in Poland, a Cudell from 1899, and next to it an Oldsmobile Curved Dash, the world's first mass-produced automobile. The National Museum of Technology is the…
Palaces
Warszawa
The Palace on the Isle in Royal Łazienki (Łazienki: "wah-ZHEN-kee") is Warsaw's most photographed palace and one of the top things to do in the Polish capital. Set on an artificial island in Łazienki Park, it was the summer residence of St…
Palaces
Karczew
The baroque palace of the Bieliński family stands on an artificial island in Lake Rokola, a short drive south-east of Warsaw. King Augustus II the Strong was a guest here, and according to tradition he met Tsar Peter I at the palace in 170…
Landmarks
Siedlce
At the top of the Siedlce town hall tower stands Atlas carrying a golden globe, and for generations locals have simply called him "Jacek". The whole building goes by the same name – a late Baroque and Neoclassical town hall from 1763–1773,…
Thermal baths & water parks
Wręcza
Suntago Park of Poland in Wręcza (VREN-chah), near the town of Mszczonów, is Poland's largest indoor water park and one of the biggest in Europe, about 50–60 km (35 miles) southwest of Warsaw. Hundreds of real palm trees grow under a vast…
Thermal baths & water parks
Mszczonów
Termy Mszczonów (say "TEHR-mih MSHCHO-noof") is a small municipal thermal pool complex in the town of Mszczonów, about 40 km southwest of Warsaw. Its pools are filled with untreated geothermal water from a well more than 1,600 meters deep,…
Museums
Warszawa
Zachęta National Gallery of Art (pronounced "zah-HEN-tah") is Poland's leading contemporary art gallery, housed in an elegant 1900 building on Małachowski Square in central Warsaw. There is no permanent display: exhibitions by Polish and i…
Castles
Ciechanów
Ciechanów Castle (Zamek Książąt Mazowieckich), the Castle of the Dukes of Masovia, is a Gothic red-brick fortress built in the early 15th century on the Łydynia river. Two massive round towers, walls about 10 m high and a spacious courtyar…
Castles
Szydłowiec
Szydłowiec Castle (Zamek Szydłowieckich i Radziwiłłów) is a white Gothic-Renaissance residence of the Szydłowiecki and Radziwiłł families, set on an island among the channels of the Korzeniówka stream. Today it houses the Museum of Folk Mu…