Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Cities & towns
Opole
Opole Venice (Opolska Wenecja, roughly "oh-POL-skah veh-NETS-yah") is the most photographed spot in Opole, southwestern Poland: a row of colorful townhouses rising straight out of the Młynówka channel and reflected in its still water. It i…
Nature
Świerzawa
On the slope of Wielisławka hill, dozens of vertical stone columns stand side by side like the pipes of a giant organ. Organy Wielisławskie, the "Wielisław Organ Pipes" in Sędziszowa near Świerzawa, are the remains of a volcano more than 2…
Technical monuments
Żyrardów
The 19th-century factory town of Żyrardów (say "zhih-RAR-doof") is a complete industrial settlement built around a linen mill just southwest of Warsaw. Red-brick workers' houses, schools, a hospital, a nursery, a social club, churches and…
Landmarks
Zabrze
Zandka is a company housing estate in the centre of Zabrze, built in 1903–1922 in the garden-city spirit for workers of the Donnersmarck ironworks. Around 40 multi-family houses of brick and half-timbering, with steep roofs and projecting…
Nature
Ojców
On a summer midday the surface of a white rock on the south-facing side of the Prądnik Valley can heat up to 60°C, while a few dozen metres away, in the shady forest on the north-facing slope, the thermometer reads 22°C. That contrast is t…
Old towns & squares
Poznań
Ostrów Tumski (say "OSS-troof TOOM-skee"), Poznań's Cathedral Island, is where the story of Poland began. On this island between the Warta and Cybina rivers stood the stronghold of Mieszko I, the first historical ruler of Poland; here the…
Old towns & squares
Wrocław
Ostrów Tumski in Wrocław (Cathedral Island, pronounced roughly OS-troof TOOM-skee, VROTS-wahv) is the oldest part of the city: a former island in the Oder River where the Piast dynasty built a stronghold in the 10th century and where a bis…
Palaces
Zielona Góra
Roofless palace ruins with trees showing through empty windows, and the vast park of a former Duchess of Sagan: Zatonie, now part of Zielona Góra, is one of Zielona Góra’s most popular places for a walk. The palace burned down in 1945 and…
Palaces
Jankowice
Jankowice Palace, about 20 km west of central Poznań, began life as a strikingly modern villa built for a Swedish diplomat. Today it is a municipal cultural centre with an 18.5-hectare park that is open around the clock. Between the palace…
Palaces
Chroberz
In Chroberz on the Nida river stands a late neoclassical palace designed by Henryk Marconi for Margrave Aleksander Wielopolski, 13th holder of the Pińczów entail (a family estate passed down undivided). The palace and park, built in 1857–1…
Viewpoints
Toruń
The Toruń panorama from the Majdany Street viewpoint is the classic postcard view of the city: the entire Gothic Old Town lined up along the Vistula River, seen from the opposite bank. From here you take in St. John's Cathedral, the Town H…
Viewpoints
Malbork
The view of Malbork Castle from the left bank of the Nogat River is the classic picture of Poland's great Teutonic fortress (Malbork is said roughly "MAHL-bork"). From the west bank you see the whole complex at once: the High Castle, the M…
Historic sites
Lublin
The State Museum at Majdanek in Lublin preserves the site of KL Lublin, a German Nazi concentration and extermination camp that operated from 1941 to 1944. Founded in the fall of 1944, it is the oldest museum in the world commemorating the…
Lakes
Tychy
Lake Paprocany, known locally simply as Paprocany, is not a natural lake. It is an artificial reservoir of 132 ha, dammed for a former ironworks whose water cooled the furnace casing and drove the bellows and the hammer. Today it is the mo…
Gardens
Poznań
In the Sołacz district, between Wielkopolska Avenue and the Bogdanka valley, lies a park best known for its avenue of silver maples. Adam Wodziczko Park covers more than 7 hectares and has over 2,000 trees of 54 species, and its patron was…
Gardens
Świdnica
Fountains, a rose garden, a pond with footbridges and a stone smith from Germanic mythology: Central Park in Świdnica is the town's best-known green space. It covers more than 9 ha and lies just south of the Old Town, so it fits easily int…
Gardens
Siemianowice Śląskie
Górnik Park in Michałkowice, a district of Siemianowice Śląskie, is a former manor park surrounding a palace known locally as the Zameczek (Little Castle). On its edge stands a neo-Gothic forester's and gardener's house, anglers sit by the…
Gardens
Szczawnica
Park Górny – the Upper Park – is Szczawnica's oldest spa garden, laid out from 1824, when Jan Kutscher began creating it. It occupies a rise on the east side of ul. Zdrojowa and Dietl Square, and among its trees stand a Gothic Revival spa…
Gardens
Jaworzno
Gródek Park in Jaworzno (pronounced roughly "GROO-dek" and "yah-VOZH-noh"), nicknamed the "Polish Maldives," is a flooded former dolomite quarry turned public park, with turquoise lakes, a winding wooden boardwalk and gazebos standing in t…
Gardens
Gliwice
Right in the centre of Gliwice, between Sienkiewicza street and the city's east–west expressway, lies a fenced park with cast-iron lions, an oak more than two hundred years old and a palm house in the middle. Fryderyk Chopin Park was creat…
Gardens
Kołobrzeg
Beneath the paths of this park above Kołobrzeg's beach there was once a military cemetery for the town's defenders of 1807, where columns from the medieval town hall served as gravestones for Joachim Nettelbeck and Ernst von Waldenfels. St…
Gardens
Katowice
In 1928 two lionesses moved into this Katowice park – a gift from the owner of a circus in Dresden. The lions are long gone, but Tadeusz Kościuszko Park is still the most valuable green space in Katowice: with a 16th-century wooden church…
Landscape parks
Kocierz Rychwałdzki
Little Beskids Landscape Park (Park Krajobrazowy Beskidu Małego, roughly "PAHRK krah-yo-brah-ZOH-vee BES-kee-doo MAH-weh-go") is a quiet mountain park in southern Poland, between the towns of Bielsko-Biała, Żywiec and Wadowice. Gentle fore…
Landscape parks
Brenna
Silesian Beskids Landscape Park (Park Krajobrazowy Beskidu Śląskiego, roughly "PAHRK krah-yo-brah-ZOH-vee BES-kee-doo SHLOHN-skee-eh-go") is the largest mountain landscape park in Silesia, southern Poland: almost 39,000 hectares of forest,…