Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Fortifications
Poznań
Above the gate of Fort VII on Polska Street in Poznań hangs the sign "Konzentrationslager Posen". This is not a military attraction but a place of remembrance: in 1939–1944 the Germans ran a camp here that they themselves called the "camp…
Museums
Rogalin
On the east wall of the largest room, where an altar would stand in a church, hangs "The Maid of Orleans" – Jan Matejko's largest painting. That was the plan of Edward Aleksander Raczyński, who in 1910 gave his collection its own publicly…
Churches & monasteries
Kalisz
St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kalisz (pronounced roughly "KAH-leesh") is the oldest church in one of Poland's oldest towns: a red-brick Gothic building founded in the 13th century and, since 1992, the cathedral of the Diocese of Kalisz. Behind…
Churches & monasteries
Zduny
The outer wall of the former Protestant church in Zduny still bears marks of German gunfire from the first day of the Second World War – at the time the little town lay right on the border. The church itself is a century and a half older:…
Churches & monasteries
Poznań
The Franciscan Church in Poznań, officially the Church of St. Anthony of Padua with its Conventual Franciscan friary, stands on Franciszkańska Street at the foot of Przemysł Hill, a two-minute walk from the Old Market Square. Behind its mo…
Churches & monasteries
Gniezno
In the side aisle of the Franciscan church, in the former oratory of the Poor Clare nuns, lie the remains of Blessed Jolenta (Yolanda) – a Hungarian princess, sister of St Kinga and grandmother of King Casimir the Great. Kings Sigismund th…
Churches & monasteries
Pyzdry
On an escarpment above the Warta, a few steps from the market square in Pyzdry, stands one of only three surviving medieval Franciscan complexes in Greater Poland. The brick church and monastery were built around 1339 on the initiative of…
Churches & monasteries
Poznań
In Krzesiny, on the south-eastern edge of Poznań, stands a church that looks as if it had been shipped in from northern Norway. The steep roofs, dark weatherboarding and intricate little tower are not Scandinavian, though: the building was…
Churches & monasteries
gmina Przygodzice
This brick church with an octagonal dome in Antonin was built as the Radziwiłł mausoleum, the family tomb of Prince Antoni, Governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen. Inside, a richly carved stone screen in a Venetian-Byzantine spirit catches t…
Churches & monasteries
Bralin
The wooden church known as Na Pólku ("in the little field") stands alone on a low rise among farmland, nearly 2 km south-east of Bralin, reached only by dirt roads. From outside it looks modest, but the interior covers 592 m² and, accordin…
Churches & monasteries
Pyzdry
Looking at Pyzdry from the bridge over the Warta, your eye is drawn to a tall brick tower with battlements. It looks like part of a castle, but it is the tower of the parish church – the Gothic Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin…
Landmarks
Golina
Around 1660 a canon from Kalisz took a copy of the Golina image of the Virgin Mary to Lišov in Bohemia – and that copy still hangs there today. It is the best proof that devotion in this small village near Jarocin is older than any survivi…
Churches & monasteries
Kołaczkowo
On Wrzesińska Street in Kołaczkowo stands the white Neoclassical Church of the Apostles Simon and Jude Thaddeus, probably built to a design by Piotr Aigner. Construction began in 1830, stalled for well over a decade and was only completed…
Churches & monasteries
Licheń Stary
Long before Licheń built one of the largest churches in Poland, the heart of the sanctuary was this red-brick neo-Gothic church on Klasztorna Street. For almost 150 years (1858–2006) it housed the image of Our Lady of Licheń, and in front…
Churches & monasteries
Jedlec
The Church of St Florian in Jedlec is a late-Baroque church from 1745–1753, built in half-timbering: a timber frame filled with brick and clay. The black-and-white body with its dark tower and red roof hides a uniform Rococo interior, and…
Churches & monasteries
Murowana Goślina
On the market square of Murowana Goślina – officially Plac Powstańców Wielkopolskich – stands the town's oldest monument, the parish church of St James the Apostle. Its walls record several centuries of rebuilding, but the most intriguing…
Churches & monasteries
Gniezno
On the vault corbels a fox stalks some geese, a pelican feeds its young, and St Menas with his camels, a 3rd-century martyr, looks down from a corbel – a reminder of the Middle Eastern roots of the order that once ran this church. The Goth…
Churches & monasteries
Zduny
The Baroque church of St John the Baptist in Zduny was completed in 1733, yet it was not consecrated until 29 April 1951 – more than two centuries later. Its tower, with a sheet-metal cupola and two lanterns, is the landmark of this small…
Churches & monasteries
Kicin
From 1564 to 1574 the titular parish priest of Kicin was Jan Kochanowski, Poland's great Renaissance poet, then a canon of Poznań. Today's wooden church was built two centuries later, in 1749–1751, on a medieval hillfort just beyond Poznań…
Churches & monasteries
Węglewo
The timber church of St Catherine of Alexandria in Węglewo, about 4 km north of Pobiedziska, is the youngest church on the Wooden Churches Trail around the Zielonka Forest – it has stood since 1818. Paradoxically it holds the oldest treasu…
Churches & monasteries
Lubiń
The walls of St Leonard's Church in Lubiń tell its story better than any information board: the lower sections of dressed granite blocks belong to a Romanesque church from the early 13th century, and above them begins the red brick of a Go…
Churches & monasteries
Rogalin
In a park near Poznań stands a Roman temple – or at least that is how it looks. The Church of St Marcellinus in Rogalin, built in 1817–1820 by Count Edward Raczyński, was modelled on the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, a temple from the 1st centur…
Churches & monasteries
Długa Goślina
St Mary Magdalene's Church in Długa Goślina is a wooden church from the early 17th century on the northern edge of the Zielonka Forest, in the municipality of Murowana Goślina. It belongs to the trail of wooden churches around the Zielonka…
Churches & monasteries
Uzarzewo
In 2001, while the tower of Uzarzewo church was being repaired, workers found a sealed bottle inside the copper ball beneath the cross: a letter to future generations, written on 12 August 1868 by the village schoolteacher. That is not thi…