Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Oświęcim
The oldest church in Oświęcim stands just north of the market square, and its tall clock tower defines the Old Town skyline – it is clearly visible, for example, as you approach the bridge from the west. The Church of the Assumption is whe…
Churches & monasteries
Praszka
For generations the people of Praszka told each other that their church stood on wooden piles driven into marshy ground. Only a survey in 2000 disproved the legend: the stone foundations rest on natural ground, and any piles could only hav…
Churches & monasteries
Racibórz
The parish church on the Market Square in Racibórz is one of the oldest parish churches in Upper Silesia and the only one in the town that has kept the features of early Gothic. Behind its west front hides an unusual addition – the Polish…
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…
Churches & monasteries
Zbrosławice
The Church of the Assumption in Zbrosławice near Tarnowskie Góry is a Gothic-baroque church from the 15th century and the Sanctuary of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At its heart is a 43-centimetre wooden figure of the Virgin a…
Churches & monasteries
Gołąb
From a distance it looks like a three-aisled basilica, but that is an illusion: the low "side aisles" are really a thickening of the walls that hides gun-ports. The church in Gołąb combines an Italian order, Netherlandish decoration and th…
Churches & monasteries
Babice
In the centre of Babice, less than a kilometre from Lipowiec Castle, stands a pale church with a tall front tower. Its parish was founded as early as 1337, and the present building hides layers from several periods: a medieval chancel, a B…
Churches & monasteries
Blizne
All Saints' Church in Blizne (say "BLEEZ-neh") is a 15th-century Gothic wooden church in southeastern Poland, set on a small rise among old trees and surrounded by a complete group of historic timber parish buildings. Since 2003 it has bee…
Churches & monasteries
Brenna
The attic of All Saints Church in Górki Wielkie is home to one of the most valuable bat colonies in the region, and behind the church, in the cemetery on the Kępka Prochaskowa hillock, lies the writer Zofia Kossak. The church itself is one…
Churches & monasteries
Kórnik
All Saints' Church tells the second half of Kórnik's story of powerful families. The Górkas, Działyńskis and Zamoyskis lived in the castle, and here are their tombs: Renaissance monuments to the governors of Poznań and a Neoclassical tomb…
Churches & monasteries
Limanowa
In the tower of the wooden church in Łososina Górna hangs the bell "Andrzej", cast in 1520, the same age as the famous Zygmunt bell in Kraków's Wawel Cathedral. It survived both world wars, as neither the Austrians nor the Germans took it…
Churches & monasteries
Poręba
The red-brick tower with its sharp spire is the highest point in Poręba. Construction of this Gothic Revival church began at Pentecost 1901 – hence its dedication to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, recalled by the dove above the main entra…
Churches & monasteries
Kazimierz Dolny
The Church of the Annunciation and the Franciscan (Reformati) Monastery in Kazimierz Dolny is a hilltop religious complex above the Market Square, known for its covered oak staircase and a venerated 400-year-old painting of the Annunciatio…
Churches & monasteries
Goczałkowice-Zdrój
St Anne's little church in Goczałkowice-Zdrój was meant to stand somewhere else, out in the fields. According to local legend, the building materials mysteriously moved overnight to the present site three times – and that is where the chur…
Churches & monasteries
Dubiecko
A yellow, centrally planned church with a dome on a tall drum stands by the main road through Dubiecko. This is the former Greek Catholic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, built in 1927, which after years as a warehouse has found…
Churches & monasteries
Nowa Słupia
Beneath the basilica of Święty Krzyż (Holy Cross), on the summit of Łysa Góra, mummified bodies of the monastery's former residents lie in open coffins. At the centre of the crypt rests a figure in a nobleman's żupan and cloak, with a mace…
Churches & monasteries
Legnica
In an octagonal chapel beside St John's Church in Legnica, four alabaster figures hold a conversation that never ends. They are the last of the Piasts, the dynasty that founded Poland: fifteen-year-old Duke George William, his parents and…
Churches & monasteries
Sieroszewice
Ołobok, a village in the Sieroszewice municipality about 17 km east of Ostrów Wielkopolski, was home to a convent for more than six centuries – and although the site is sometimes called a Cistercian abbey, it was Cistercian nuns who lived…
Churches & monasteries
Gościkowo
Paradyż Cistercian Abbey (say "PAH-rah-dish"; officially Gościkowo-Paradyż) is a medieval monastery in western Poland and the largest, best-preserved abbey complex in the Lubuskie region. A Gothic church with a lavish Baroque interior, two…
Churches & monasteries
Sulejów
Sulejów Abbey (say "soo-LEH-yoof") is one of the best-preserved Cistercian monasteries in Poland and a showpiece of Romanesque architecture on the Pilica River in central Poland. Its stone Church of St. Thomas Becket, consecrated in 1232,…
Churches & monasteries
Lubiąż
Lubiąż Abbey (roughly "LOO-byonzh") is one of the largest monastic complexes in Europe and a masterpiece of Silesian Baroque: its facade stretches about 223 m (730 ft) and the buildings hold more than 300 rooms. Set above the Oder River ab…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Tyniec Abbey (pronounced "TIN-yets") is a Benedictine monastery perched on a white limestone cliff above the Vistula River, within the city limits of Kraków, and one of the oldest abbeys in Poland. Tradition dates its founding to 1044, and…
Churches & monasteries
Żagań
In the monastery library in Żagań, two people standing in opposite corners of the room can talk in a whisper while anyone in the middle hears nothing. This is the work of a so-called whispering vault, one of the curiosities of the former A…
Churches & monasteries
Mstów
For many pilgrims walking to the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa, this is the last stop and the first place from which they can see their goal – the monastery tower. On Przeprośna Górka (296 m above sea level) in Siedlec near Mstów, tr…