Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Praszka
In Wierzbie, a village in the Praszka municipality on national road 45 between Wieluń and Opole, stands a wooden church whose log structure is dated to around 1522. It is a late Gothic church of the Wieluń type – a reminder that this north…
Churches & monasteries
Pawłowiczki
In the fields outside Gościęcin, next to a spring long believed to cure eye ailments, stands the wooden pilgrimage church of St Brice, built in 1661. Locals simply call the area with the church, the former hermitage and the chapels Bryksy.…
Churches & monasteries
Gogolin
The rood beam of the wooden church in Malnia still bears the German words "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A mighty fortress is our God"), the opening line of Martin Luther's famous hymn. It is a reminder that the church was built for a P…
Churches & monasteries
Prostki
In 1656, Tatar troops returning with their plunder from the battle of Prostki burned Ostrykół to the ground, together with its church and library, and carried off 1,326 people from the parish into captivity. The village was rebuilt, and a…
Churches & monasteries
Wilamowice
On a cemetery hill in Stara Wieś near Wilamowice stands a wooden church whose construction date, 1522, has been confirmed by tree-ring dating. Shingled roofs, covered walkways around the walls and late Gothic portals with "donkey-back" arc…
Churches & monasteries
Czersk
It stands right below the towers of the castle of the Dukes of Mazovia and is linked to it quite literally – the church walls were built with bricks taken from the castle when it was partly demolished. The Church of the Transfiguration in…
Churches & monasteries
Iława
In 1940 the people of Iława took their 18th-century bells down from the tower and handed them over to be melted down for the war industry. Yet the bells survived: in 1952 Pastor Schäffer from Osterode am Harz found them in the "bell cemete…
Churches & monasteries
Libiąż
The Church of the Transfiguration at 83 Oświęcimska Street in Libiąż is a red-brick Neo-Gothic church from the early 20th century whose interior deliberately imitates St Mary's Basilica in Kraków. Under a deep-blue, star-studded vault stan…
Churches & monasteries
Goniądz
The white church with its tall tower in the centre of Goniądz is the latest of the churches that have stood here since the Middle Ages and a reminder of the turbulent history of this small town on the Biebrza river. It was built in 1922–19…
Churches & monasteries
Barczewo
In a side chapel of the church in Barczewo a stone cardinal kneels under an arch, while below him lies a knight in armour. They are Andrew and Balthasar Báthory, nephews of King Stephen Báthory of Poland, and the tomb was made in 1598 by t…
Churches & monasteries
Brok
In the Renaissance frescoes of the church in Brok, ordinary 16th-century people stand alongside biblical patriarchs and kings: men and women in the dress of the time, priests and deacons with books and candlesticks. Hidden under plaster fo…
Landmarks
Gilowice
The wooden Church of St Andrew the Apostle in Gilowice has moved house: it was built in the neighbouring village of Rychwałd, and in the mid-18th century it was taken apart and reassembled in the next village. Inside you will find a stone…
Landmarks
Golina
Around 1660 a canon from Kalisz took a copy of the Golina image of the Virgin Mary to Lišov in Bohemia – and that copy still hangs there today. It is the best proof that devotion in this small village near Jarocin is older than any survivi…
Churches & monasteries
Ujazd
St Andrew the Apostle Church in Ujazd (Strzelce County) looks like a 19th-century Gothic Revival church, but the lower parts of its towers and the walls of its nave hide the masonry of a 13th-century Romanesque church. The interior is Baro…
Landmarks
Zator
The wooden Church of St Andrew in Graboszyce near Zator stands opposite a Renaissance fortified manor built by the same founder, Dziwisz (Dionizy) Brandys. It was built around 1585 in the Silesian-Lesser Poland style, and its oddity is a t…
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
Środa Śląska
The outer walls of St Andrew's are still those of a late-Romanesque basilica from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries — one of the oldest buildings in Środa Śląska. Above them rises a Gothic chancel of 1378–1388 with a vault attributed…
Churches & monasteries
Barczewo
The tallest landmark above Barczewo's roofs is the brick tower of the Church of St Anne and St Stephen, topped by a Baroque spire with a weathervane dated 1800. This is the town's parish church and one of the finest examples of Gothic chur…
Churches & monasteries
Krynki
The two slender towers of St Anne's Church can be seen from afar above Krynki, a small town near the Belarusian border. The brick neo-Gothic church was built in 1907–1912, but the parish has five centuries of history behind it – it goes ba…
Churches & monasteries
Lubartów
Above the main entrance of Lubartów's parish church hangs a black cartouche with a Latin inscription naming the man who paid for it – Prince Paweł Karol Sanguszko. The Baroque Basilica of St Anne was built in 1733–1738 to a design by Paweł…
Churches & monasteries
Lubomierz
On ul. 1 Maja, at the edge of old Lubomierz, a pink church with a small roof turret stands behind a stone wall with a gate. This is the cemetery church of St Anne from 1669, surrounded by one of the oldest surviving cemeteries in the area.…
Churches & monasteries
Przechlewo
Seen from the tower end, St Anne's Church in Przechlewo looks like a village church of timber framing and wood; from the chancel end, like a red-brick neo-Gothic church. It is really two buildings grown into one: a half-timbered nave from…
Churches & monasteries
Ustroń
On the northern edge of Ustroń, in the Nierodzim district, a dark, shingle-clad church dedicated to St Anne stands among old trees and gravestones. In summer it is easy to miss, yet it is the oldest church in Ustroń. The present building i…
Churches & monasteries
Ząbkowice Śląskie
Everyone comes to Ząbkowice Śląskie for the Leaning Tower, and hardly anyone looks inside the church it once served as a bell tower. Yet the Gothic Church of St Anne, founded by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, holds a Renaissance tomb of…