Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
Kościuszko Mound in Kraków (say "kosh-CHOOSH-ko") is a 34-meter earthen hill raised by hand in 1820–1823 in honor of Tadeusz Kościuszko — the Polish-Lithuanian general who fought in the American Revolutionary War and later led the 1794 upr…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
In Mogiła, now part of Kraków's Nowa Huta district, stands a mound that nobody has fully explained. Wanda Mound was probably raised in the 7th–8th century, and since the Middle Ages it has been seen as the grave of the legendary daughter o…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
On 23 June 1597 the Jesuits laid the foundations of a church on Grodzka Street to the music of three choirs, with Mass said under a tent. So began the construction of Kraków's first fully Baroque building, funded by King Sigismund III Vasa…
Churches & monasteries
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska (pronounced roughly kal-VAR-ya zeb-zhi-DOV-ska) is a 17th-century pilgrimage park in the hills southwest of Kraków: a Bernardine monastery and basilica plus 42 chapels and churches scattered across wooded slopes, laid…
Museums
Kraków
Nicolaus Copernicus studied in this building in the 1490s. The Collegium Maius at 15 Jagiellońska Street is the oldest surviving building of the Jagiellonian University and home to its museum: a Gothic courtyard with arcades, rooms where p…
Cities & towns
Kraków
For almost five hundred years Kazimierz was not a district of Kraków but a separate town — with its own market square, town hall and walls, cut off from Kraków by a branch of the Vistula. King Casimir the Great founded it on 27 February 13…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Legend has it that on the spot where the Corpus Christi Basilica now stands, a stolen monstrance was found in a marsh, with mysterious lights burning above it day and night — and the king promised to build a church there. The facts are jus…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The little church in the corner of Kraków's Main Market Square is older than the square itself — by roughly a century. St Adalbert's Church is one of the oldest stone churches in Poland, with walls dating back to the 11th century. That is…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The Old Synagogue in Kraków, on Szeroka Street in the historic Jewish district of Kazimierz ("ka-ZHEE-myesh"), is the oldest surviving synagogue building in Poland and one of the most important monuments of Jewish architecture in Europe. F…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
Into this mound went soil from every First World War battlefield where Poles fought, and since 1981 soil from Second World War battlefields has also rested at its foot — hence its nickname, the "Grave of Graves". Józef Piłsudski Mound, on…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
On a small limestone hill above the Vistula, a few hundred metres from Wawel, Bishop Stanislaus of Szczepanów was killed in 1079, according to tradition. The Baroque Basilica of St Michael the Archangel and St Stanislaus, known simply as S…
Landmarks
Kraków
The facade bears the motto "Kraków to the national art", and on the stage behind it, on 16 March 1901, Wyspiański's play "The Wedding" had its world premiere — one of the defining moments of Polish culture. The Juliusz Słowacki Theatre, op…
Nature
Kraków
In 1917, in the middle of the First World War, the Kraków Municipal Savings Bank bought the woods on the city's western hills and handed them over to the city as a people's park. That is how Wolski Forest came about — 419 hectares of beech…
Castles
Rudno
In 1655, with the Swedes invading, Grand Marshal Jerzy Lubomirski hid the Polish crown treasury in the Spiš region — and deliberately spread a rumour that it had been taken to Tenczyn. The Swedes fell for it: they besieged the castle, mass…
Zoos
Kraków
Kraków Zoo is not in a city park but on Pustelnik Hill in the middle of Wolski Forest, about 8 km from the Main Market Square. Its 20 hectares are home to around 1,500 animals from more than 270 species, over a hundred of them classed as e…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
From Miodowa Street, the Tempel looks like an elegant town house with a triangular gable. Inside, visitors find a colourful, gilded hall in the Moorish style, quite unlike the austere Renaissance synagogues of Kazimierz. This Progressive s…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Behind a gate with a Hebrew inscription on Szeroka Street lies a small white prayer hall measuring just 10.4 by 5.1 metres. The Remuh Synagogue is the second-oldest synagogue in Kraków and the only one in the city where services are held r…
Mountains & peaks
Sromowce Niżne
Trzy Korony (say "tshih koh-ROH-nih"), meaning "Three Crowns," is the most famous peak of the Pieniny Mountains on the Polish–Slovak border. From the railed viewing platform on its highest crag, Okrąglica (982 m / 3,222 ft), you look strai…
Landmarks
Zakopane
The landowner Zygmunt Gnatowski wanted to build an ordinary highlander's cottage in Zakopane to house his ethnographic collection. Stanisław Witkiewicz talked him into something new. The result, built in 1892–1893, was Villa Koliba, the fi…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Dębno Podhalańskie
The wooden church in Dębno (say "DEMB-no") is St. Michael the Archangel's Church, a late-Gothic log church in the Podhale highlands of southern Poland and one of the best-preserved medieval wooden churches anywhere in Europe. Part of the U…
Hidden gemCastles
Niedzica
Niedzica Castle (say "nyeh-JEET-sah"), also known as Dunajec Castle, is a white-walled Gothic and Renaissance fortress on a rocky hill above Czorsztyn Lake in southern Poland. For six centuries it was a Hungarian border stronghold, facing…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Kraków
The Camaldolese Hermitage at Bielany (Polish: Klasztor na Bielanach, roughly "KLAHSH-tor nah byeh-LAH-nakh") is a Baroque monastery on Silver Mountain, rising above the Vistula valley at the edge of Wolski Forest on Kraków's western outski…
Hidden gemNature
Sułoszowa
A limestone column about 25 m high, narrower at the bottom than at the top, stands on a rock terrace 8–12 m above the floor of the Prądnik Valley, right next to Pieskowa Skała Castle. Hercules' Club (Maczuga Herkulesa) is one of the best-k…
Hidden gemCaves
Kraków
The Dragon's Den (Polish: Smocza Jama, roughly "SMOH-chah YAH-mah") is a limestone cave inside Wawel Hill in Kraków, the legendary lair of the Wawel Dragon. A short, atmospheric route takes you from the castle grounds down a spiral stairca…