Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Częstochowa
The Archcathedral of the Holy Family in Częstochowa (say "chen-stoh-HOH-vah") is one of the largest churches in Poland: a neo-Gothic red-brick basilica with twin spires over 80 m (260 ft) tall, standing just a few minutes' walk from the ci…
Mountains & peaks
Soblówka
Poland's first PTTK "bacówka" – a small mountain hut – was supposed to be flown up to the meadow in one piece by helicopter from the village of Soblówka. That proved technically impossible, so the wooden hut was built on site on Hala Rycer…
Mountains & peaks
Koniaków
In the hamlet of Szańce in Koniaków, the Kohut family runs a Shepherding Centre: a wooden shepherd's hut, known locally as the "kolyba", a highlander shop and an educational farm with sheep and goats. The farm practises traditional grazing…
Amusement parks
Katowice
Bajka Pana Kleksa (Mr Blot's Fairy Tale) is a family centre for play and learning in the former Porcelain Factory in Katowice: more than 1,400 m² of puzzles, experiments and sets inspired by Jan Brzechwa's novels about Professor Klex. It i…
Fortifications
Częstochowa
The walls of St Roch's Bastion still bear the marks of Swedish cannonballs from the siege of Jasna Góra in 1655. This massive, many-sided bastion at the north-western corner of the former Jasna Góra fortress was built in 1631–1636. Its old…
Churches & monasteries
Rybnik
Two soaring towers with copper spires can be seen from almost anywhere in Rybnik. The neo-Gothic Basilica of St Anthony, informally called the Cathedral of the Rybnik Land, is considered the tallest church in Upper Silesia – Polish sources…
Churches & monasteries
Zawiercie
Five red-brick towers above central Zawiercie are a reminder of the days when the town grew up around a huge cotton mill. The neo-Gothic Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul was built for the workers of the Zawiercie Joint-Stock Company (TAZ)…
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…
Ski resorts
Szczyrk
The COS Skrzyczne ski area in Szczyrk (say "shchirk") is run by Poland's Central Sports Center on the slopes of Skrzyczne (1,257 m / 4,124 ft), the highest peak of the Silesian Beskids. In winter it offers some of the steepest runs in the…
Museums
Podlesice
The Jura Natural and Cultural Heritage Center in Podlesice (pronounced roughly "pod-leh-SHEE-tseh") is a small visitor center at the foot of Góra Zborów, one of the most striking limestone hills of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland – the "Poli…
Palaces
Świerklaniec
The white Neo-Gothic palace with a tall tower in Nakło Śląskie looks more like a Tudor-era English residence than a typical Silesian palace. It was built in 1856–1858 by Count Hugo I Henckel von Donnersmarck, one of the richest industrial…
Museums
Koniaków
Inside a wooden house in the Szańce part of Koniaków, the highest village in the Silesian Voivodeship, hangs a trombita more than 11 metres long. According to the regional tourism portal it is probably the longest instrument of its kind in…
Amusement parks
Skoczów
The Pyramids, the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower within a few hundred steps of each other, next to realistic dinosaur models and a house built upside down. Dream Park in Ochaby is a family amusement park on natio…
Churches & monasteries
Milówka
From outside it is a modest shingled church on a high hill in Pochodzita, a hamlet of Laliki. The interior is the surprise: walls and ceiling are covered with scenes scratched into the wood with a nail and knife or burnt into it, the work…
Churches & monasteries
Lubliniec
The small wooden Church of St Anne has stood in Lubliniec since 1653, although it has occupied its present spot only since the early 21st century. Between 1999 and 2001 it was dismantled and reassembled, partly with its old beams, and shif…
Churches & monasteries
Mikołów
Three Baroque domes above a shingle roof are visible from afar in Paniowy, now a district of Mikołów, which has one of the prettiest wooden churches in Upper Silesia. Work on the log-built Church of Saints Peter and Paul began in 1757, but…
Churches & monasteries
Lelów
The wooden Church of St Giles in Podlesie stands in a quiet village on the northern edge of Silesian Voivodeship, in the Włoszczowa Basin, in Lelów municipality. From outside it is a modest, board-clad church under a shingle roof, but the…
Churches & monasteries
Olsztyn
The parish of Zrębice appears in the Peter's Pence registers as early as 1334, under the name "Sdrzambicze" – a place cleared of scrub and forest. The wooden Church of St Giles that stands here today was built in 1789, and beside it surviv…
Churches & monasteries
Koszęcin
The wooden Church of St John the Baptist in Brusiek stands at the edge of a forest village in Lubliniec County, in the municipality of Koszęcin. According to dendrochronological research it dates from 1593, making it one of the oldest monu…
Churches & monasteries
Zbrosławice
On a cemetery hill in Księży Las, between Pyskowice and Tarnowskie Góry, stands the wooden Church of St Michael the Archangel, begun in 1497–1498. It is one of the oldest wooden churches in Upper Silesia – a late-Gothic building with shing…
Churches & monasteries
Koszęcin
To the left of the high altar in the wooden Holy Trinity Church in Koszęcin stands an oak stump about 2 metres high. According to tradition, it was beside this tree that the miller's daughter Wiktoria repeatedly saw three children asking f…
Churches & monasteries
Miasteczko Śląskie
For more than a century after the town was founded, the people of Miasteczko Śląskie walked to neighbouring Żyglin for Mass. They only built a church of their own — wooden, with a shingled roof and a covered arcade — in 1665–1667, and the…
Landmarks
Brenna
The Kossak Manor in Górki Wielkie (say "GOOR-kee VYEL-kyeh") is the partly rebuilt ruin of an 18th-century country house in southern Poland's Cieszyn Silesia region, where the Kossak family of artists and writers lived from 1922. Its best-…
Museums
Złoty Potok
In the summer of 1857 the poet Zygmunt Krasiński lived in this single-storey Neoclassical manor house in Złoty Potok – and he gave names to many of the surrounding rocks, springs and ponds, including the Irydion pond below the palace. Toda…