Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Landmarks
Toruń
On the site of today's Artus Court, the Second Peace of Toruń was sworn in 1466 – the treaty under which Gdańsk Pomerania, and with it access to the sea, returned to Poland. The present building at Rynek Staromiejski 6 is already the third…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
Exploseum in Bydgoszcz is a museum set inside the ruins of DAG Fabrik Bromberg, a vast Nazi German explosives factory hidden in a pine forest on the edge of the city. You walk through concrete halls where nitroglycerin was produced during…
Fortifications
Toruń
Fort IV in Toruń is the best-preserved and most visitor-friendly fort of the 19th-century Toruń Fortress — a Prussian stronghold of red-brick barracks, vaulted casemates and a dry moat that you can explore on your own by day or with a guid…
Castles
Grudziądz
On a hill rising some 60 m above the Vistula once stood one of the mightiest Teutonic castles in the Chełmno Land. The Prussians took it apart for its bricks, German soldiers blew up the last surviving tower in 1945 – and the people of Gru…
Lakes
Biskupin
Without this lake there would be no Biskupin. The water first allowed a fortified settlement to be built on a marshy island, then for centuries covered its wooden remains, and in 1933 – when the level dropped – it revealed timber posts tha…
Lakes
Topólka
Lake Głuszyńskie is almost ten kilometres long and 36.5 metres deep at its deepest point, deeper than the nearby and much better known Lake Gopło. It lies in the Kuyavian Lake District near Radziejów, and its shores are shared by three mun…
Lakes
Kruszwica
Lake Gopło (pronounced roughly GO-pwo) is the largest natural lake in Kuyavia, a long glacial lake in central Poland, about 25 km from end to end. The town of Kruszwica on its northern shore is where you will find the Mouse Tower and the l…
Churches & monasteries
Pakość
In spring 1628 the parish priest of Pakość led the first service along paths he had laid out to mirror Jerusalem, using a 16th-century description of the Holy City by Adrichomius. This was the birth of Pakość Calvary, known as the Jerusale…
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,…
Churches & monasteries
Toruń
St. John's Cathedral in Toruń, formally the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, is the largest church in the city's UNESCO-listed Old Town and the place where Nicolaus Copernicus was baptized in 1473. Bu…
Churches & monasteries
Bydgoszcz
The Cathedral of Sts. Martin and Nicholas (Katedra św. Marcina i Mikołaja) is the oldest surviving building in Bydgoszcz, Poland – a Gothic brick parish church on the Brda River, just steps from the Old Market Square. Plain on the outside,…
Churches & monasteries
Włocławek
Włocławek Cathedral (say "vwo-TSWAH-vek"), the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption on Copernicus Square, is one of the oldest and most important Gothic churches in Poland. Its soaring red-brick spires rise above the Vistula River in a mid…
Churches & monasteries
Żnin
Set into the north wall of Żnin's parish church is a stone block older than the church itself – it comes from a 13th-century Romanesque building and is carved with the figure of a horseman. It is a good clue to the whole building: the Goth…
Churches & monasteries
Toruń
St. James' Church in Toruń is the Gothic parish church of the medieval New Town, standing at the eastern corner of the New Town Square. The city calls it the most beautiful Gothic church in Toruń, and it is the only one here with external…
Churches & monasteries
Brodnica
The Teutonic Order's chronicler Peter of Dusburg recorded that on 29 September 1298, during a Lithuanian raid, the parish priest of Brodnica was killed — and at that time a wooden church still stood on the site of today's parish church. Th…
Churches & monasteries
Golub-Dobrzyń
The tower of St Catherine's Church in Golub holds a bell donated in 1623 by King Sigismund III Vasa – brother of Anna Vasa, who was then living at the nearby castle as its governor. The church itself is more than three hundred years older:…
Churches & monasteries
Chełmża
St Nicholas Church at 9 Kopernika Street, south-west of the market square, is the former parish church of Chełmża and the town's second Gothic church after the co-cathedral. The parish is recorded as early as 1248, and the brick church was…
Churches & monasteries
Gąsawa
St. Nicholas Church in Gąsawa (pronounced "gon-SAH-vah") is a 17th-century wooden church in the Pałuki region of north-central Poland that hides one of the country's most surprising interiors. Behind its plain dark timber walls, the ceilin…
Churches & monasteries
Chełmno
Chełmno calls itself the town of lovers, and the reason lies in its parish church: the Gothic Church of the Assumption keeps relics of St Valentine. The church deserves a visit regardless of Valentine's Day. It is one of the most unified G…
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…
Landmarks
Toruń
The Leaning Tower of Toruń (Krzywa Wieża, roughly "KSHI-vah VYEH-zhah") is a 14th-century tower in the medieval city walls facing the Vistula River, tilted almost one and a half meters off vertical. Alongside gingerbread and Copernicus, it…
Museums
Kłóbka
In Kłóbka, nicknamed the Pearl of Kuyavia for its hills, woods and lakes, stands the manor house where Maria Wodzińska (later Orpiszewska) spent the last years of her life; she was the only official fiancée of Fryderyk Chopin. Around the m…
Nature
Bydgoszcz
Myślęcinek Forest Park (roughly "mish-len-CHEE-nek") in Bydgoszcz is one of the most rewarding things to do in this northern Polish city if you like green space: some 830 hectares (2,050 acres) of woodland, hills, valleys and ponds just no…
Monuments & mounds
Bydgoszcz
The nude archer drawing her bow opposite the Polish Theatre is today the best-known symbol of Bydgoszcz, but for her first decades she was a local scandal. Between the wars the city council even voted to remove her. The bronze figure by th…