Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Fortifications
Wieluń
The tower that now serves as Wieluń's town-hall tower began life as a medieval town gate guarding the road to Kraków. The Kraków Gate (Brama Krakowska) is the only surviving gate of Wieluń's old walls, and since 1842 it has been part of a…
Palaces
Żytno
In the 19th century Henryk Sienkiewicz and Jacek Malczewski are said to have visited, after the war village children went to school here, and then for years the building fell into ruin. Żytno Manor House – a classicist residence from 1819…
Museums
Łódź
EC1 Łódź – City of Culture is a former power station in Łódź (say "WOODGE") reborn as a cluster of museums: Poland's largest science and technology center, a state-of-the-art planetarium, a national exhibition on Polish cinema and a comics…
Museums
Łódź
Experymentarium is a Discovery Centre-style science centre in Łódź's Manufaktura complex, on the first floor of a building on the Manufaktura market square. There is one rule: you have to touch everything. The interactive exhibition has ab…
Monuments & mounds
Łódź
On Piotrkowska Street you can sit on a bench next to the poet Julian Tuwim, lean on Arthur Rubinstein's piano, or pull up a chair at a table with the textile tycoons Karl Scheibler and Izrael Poznański. The Gallery of Great Łódź Citizens (…
Mountains & peaks
Kamieńsk
The highest hill in central Poland was not shaped by the Ice Age but by the communist-era economy: it was piled up by the spreaders of the Bełchatów lignite mine. Góra Kamieńska rises to 405.6 m above sea level and about 195 m above its su…
Nature
Stara Wieś
Here some of the water flows out of a rock fissure on the bank, while the rest wells up from the bottom of a pool – an old oxbow of the River Warta. Granatowe Źródła ("Navy Blue Springs"), between Troniny and Stara Wieś, are the only examp…
Churches & monasteries
Łowicz
Łowicz Cathedral (say "WO-veech"), formally the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption and St. Nicholas, stands on the Old Market Square of a small town in central Poland and is nicknamed the "Wawel of Mazovia". It is the burial place of twe…
Churches & monasteries
Łódź
Long before Łódź became an industrial city, pilgrims were already heading to the shrine of St Anthony in Łagiewniki on its northern edge. This Baroque Franciscan complex, with a brick church consecrated in 1726, began with a wooden votive…
Technical monuments
Rogów
The heritage train from Rogów never goes faster than 40 km/h, and many of its wagons still carry the names of the sugar factories they came from. The Rogów – Rawa – Biała narrow-gauge railway is the only heritage narrow-gauge line in Łódź…
Churches & monasteries
Łęczyca
From the outside the white Baroque Bernardine church on ul. Poznańska in Łęczyca looks modest, but inside it hides one of the finest Rococo interiors in the region: illusionistic paintings by Brother Walenty Żebrowski from 1762–1763 and a…
Landmarks
Wieluń
Hidden in a clump of old trees beside a stream stands a larch-wood church that is barely visible from national road 45. The Church of the Holy Name of Mary in Gaszyn, 3 km south of Wieluń, belongs to the Wieluń group of 16th-century wooden…
Landmarks
Wieluń
Beside national road 45, five kilometres from Wieluń, a modern brick church has its larch-wood predecessor standing right next to it. St Andrew's wooden church in Kadłub dates from the early 16th century and belongs to the so-called Wieluń…
Churches & monasteries
Łęczyca
By the exit of Łęczyca's parish church stands a stone holy-water stoup with grooves worn into its rim. Local tradition says they were left by noblemen sharpening their sabres while regional assemblies of the gentry met in the church. The G…
Churches & monasteries
Tomaszów Mazowiecki
On a hill in Inowłódz, above the Pilica valley, stands one of the oldest churches in Poland: a stone church with a round tower, traditionally dated to the late 11th century. The Romanesque Church of St Giles in Inowłódz is tied to the hist…
Landmarks
Pątnów
From outside it is a modest, weatherboarded little church hidden among trees in its old churchyard. Inside, though, the ceiling is covered with Renaissance paintings from 1520–1531, where alongside religious scenes you will find the Jagiel…
Churches & monasteries
Łódź
The Church of the Assumption towers over Kościelny Square in Łódź's Old Town – its two slender towers of red, unrendered brick are visible from afar. It is the church of the city's oldest parish, for almost five hundred years the only Cath…
Technical monuments
Łódź
Księży Młyn ("Priest's Mill") is the largest historic factory complex in Łódź from the second half of the 19th century: a 207-metre spinning mill, brick workers' houses, a school, a fire station, a hospital and a manufacturer's palace, all…
Amusement parks
Rzgów
Mandoria – City of Adventures is an amusement park in Rzgów, about 20 km south of Łódź, on national road no. 1. Most of its rides are indoors, themed as a 16th-century Renaissance merchant town, so the park works whatever the weather. Next…
Technical monuments
Łódź
Manufaktura in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is a vast 19th-century textile factory turned into the city's liveliest destination. Across 27 hectares (67 acres) of red-brick mills built by cotton magnate Izrael Poznański, you'll now find museums, a m…
Technical monuments
Maurzyce
The modest steel truss over the little Słudwia River near Łowicz is the world's first welded road bridge. It was designed by Professor Stefan Bryła and opened on 12 August 1929. Because it was welded rather than riveted, the structure weig…
Fortifications
Wieluń
Wieluń is one of 25 towns given defensive walls in the reign of Casimir the Great. Together with the castles of the Polish Jura it formed a belt of fortifications guarding the Kingdom of Poland's south-western border, from Kraków to Ostrze…
Museums
Łódź
The Film Museum in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is the only museum in Poland dedicated to the technology, art and culture of cinema. It occupies the 19th-century palace of textile magnate Karol Scheibler, on the edge of the Księży Młyn industrial e…
Museums
Łódź
The Museum of Art in Łódź (Muzeum Sztuki, say "WOODGE") holds one of the oldest avant-garde art collections in the world and is a must for anyone interested in modern art in Poland. It operates across three branches: ms1 in a neo-Renaissan…