Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
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Pyzdry
On the wall of the sports hall in Pyzdry a priest hovers in mid-air with a hole in his belly. He is Mikołaj, parish priest of Biechowo, struck by a stone ball during the siege of Pyzdry in 1383 – the first documented use of gunpowder artil…
Other
Tarnowskie Góry
Step off the train in Tarnowskie Góry and you walk straight into five hundred years of the town's history, painted on a single wall. The Jubilee Mural at the transport interchange next to the station is around 120 metres long and, accordin…
Other
Pyzdry
On a concrete fence by the marina in Pyzdry, men are still bathing in the Warta, washerwomen are rinsing laundry, and a group of women is crossing a bridge that disappeared long ago. This large-format mural from 2021 turns old photographs…
Fortifications
Toruń
Toruń's medieval city walls and gates are the best-preserved part of the town's fortifications: a long stretch of red-brick wall with towers and three Gothic gates running along the Vistula River. They form the famous riverside skyline of…
Fortifications
Świebodzin
In the 16th century the whole of Świebodzin was ringed by a wall with twelve towers and three gates, with a water-filled moat outside. Today only sections remain, and you have to spot them between town houses and trees. The best preserved…
Technical monuments
Szczucin
The Road Museum in Szczucin (roughly "SHCHOO-cheen") is one of the most unusual free things to do in southern Poland: an open-air collection of steam rollers, snowplows and road-building machines, plus a walking trail that takes you throug…
Historic sites
Rogoźnica
In Rogoźnica near Strzegom, next to a former granite quarry, stood the German concentration camp Gross-Rosen. Some 125,000 prisoners passed through the main camp and its sub-camps, and the museum estimates the number of victims at about 40…
Historic sites
Sobibór
The Sobibór Museum and Memorial is a branch of the State Museum at Majdanek, set on the grounds of a Nazi German extermination camp that operated in occupied Poland in 1942 and 1943. Visitors walk a memorial avenue through pine forest, see…
Historic sites
Luboń
The Nazis called it the "camp of bloody revenge". Some 40,000 prisoners passed through the German penal and interrogation camp at Żabikowo, which operated from 1943 to 1945 on the edge of today's Luboń, just outside Poznań. Since 1979 the…
Museums
Skoczów
In the cellar of the house at Rynek 2, right next to Skoczów town hall, John Sarkander was born according to 17th-century accounts. He was a priest tortured to death in Olomouc in 1620 and canonised by John Paul II in 1995. Today the cella…
Other
Wrocław
Nadodrze is a district of tenement houses, workshops and painted courtyards just across the Oder, about 10 minutes' walk from the Market Square. In 1945 it suffered far less damage than the centre, so today it shows pre-war Wrocław in its…
Landscape parks
Policko
Warta Landscape Park (Nadwarciański Park Krajobrazowy) is one of the best places in western Poland for birdwatching, a broad floodplain of the Warta River between the small towns of Pyzdry and Ląd (pronounced "lont"). There is no ticket ga…
Landmarks
Katowice
Nikiszowiec (say "nee-kee-SHOH-vyets") is a historic coal miners' housing estate in Katowice, southern Poland, and one of the most photogenic places in the whole Upper Silesia region. Built more than a century ago, its nine red-brick block…
Old towns & squares
Warszawa
Warsaw's New Town (Nowe Miasto, pronounced "NO-veh MYAH-stoh") is a former independent town founded in the early 15th century just north of the Old Town, and today it is one of the most pleasant corners of the Polish capital's historic cen…
Other
Wieliczka
On Wieliczka's Upper Market Square (Rynek Górny) the paving seems to crack open, revealing the depths of the salt mine with St Kinga's Chapel. The illusion is the work of Ryszard Paprocki – the 3D street painting "Solny Świat" (Salt World)…
Historic sites
Wizna
The Defense of Wizna at Góra Strękowa (VEEZ-na; goo-RA stren-KO-va) is an open-air war memorial where, on September 7-10, 1939, Polish soldiers under Captain Władysław Raginis held the Narew River line against General Heinz Guderian's XIX…
Technical monuments
Łódź
OFF Piotrkowska in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is a former 19th-century cotton mill at 138/140 Piotrkowska Street, reborn as one of Poland's best-known creative districts. Between red-brick halls, silver pipes and murals you will find restaurants,…
Gardens
Poznań
In western Poznań, in the district that took its name from it – Ogrody, "Gardens" – about 22 hectares of plant collections from around the world spread out. The Adam Mickiewicz University Botanical Garden is both a research institution and…
Gardens
Warszawa
Krasiński Garden (Ogród Krasińskich, pronounced "kra-SHEEN-skeekh") is a historic city park in Warsaw's Muranów district, created in 1676 as the Baroque garden of the Krasiński Palace and open to the public since the 1760s. Today it is a c…
Gardens
Lublin
Lublin's thickest tree grows in the Saxon Garden: a white poplar in the southern part of the park measures more than 6 metres round and has been a protected natural monument since 1997. The city's oldest public park was laid out in 1837 in…
Gardens
Goczałkowice-Zdrój
The Kapias Gardens in Goczałkowice-Zdrój are the show gardens of a family-run nursery where you can spend a whole day – without paying a single złoty for admission. More than 30 themed gardens and corners spread over about 4.5 ha: from Jap…
Gardens
Muszyna
In March or April, depending on the winter, the slope of Sucha Góra in Muszyna is covered with millions of crocuses. The Sensory Gardens, also called the Gardens of the Senses, are a free spa park designed to engage sight, hearing, smell,…
Nature
Kroczyce
At the top of a limestone crag in the village of Piaseczno gapes a window measuring about 7 × 5 m – hence the name Okiennik Wielki, roughly "the Great Window Rock", one of the symbols of the northern Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, known as the…
Monuments & mounds
Olsztyn
At the entrance to Olsztyn near Częstochowa, travellers are greeted by a seven-metre wooden Guardian Angel. The sculpture by folk artist Jan Wewiór was set up on Pańska Góra hill in 2007 and has since become the emblem of this small Jurass…