Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Szydłów
In stone-built Szydłów, where the walls, castle and synagogue were all raised from local limestone, the parish church of St Ladislaus stands out by its colour alone: it is a brick Gothic church from the mid-14th century. It was founded by…
Churches & monasteries
Modlnica
In 1553 the nobleman Jakub Śladkowski of Zabierzów built a new wooden church in Modlnica, and in return received the annual tithes, the crops from the parish fields and – according to the parish chronicle – the right to use the parish prie…
Churches & monasteries
Jeleśnia
On the road from Żywiec to the Slovak border crossing at Korbielów, in the upper part of Jeleśnia, stands the Baroque Church of St Adalbert (św. Wojciech). Its tower is topped with a domed cap that looks more like the churches on the Slova…
Churches & monasteries
Międzyrzecz
St Adalbert's Church on the market square in Międzyrzecz is one of the notable church designs of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the most famous Prussian architect of the 19th century. The plain rendered building with a tall tower topped by a gil…
Churches & monasteries
Szydłowiec
Four centuries ago someone carved a knight in armour, buildings with pennants and a house topped with a ball into the sandstone blocks of Szydłowiec's parish church. This graffiti from around 1600 is just one reason to walk all the way rou…
Churches & monasteries
Gniezno
The Holy Trinity parish church (fara) stands on ul. Farna, a few dozen metres south of Gniezno's Market Square, on Maiden Hill (Wzgórze Panieńskie). It is one of the oldest churches in the city and for centuries was the burghers' most impo…
Landmarks
Pątnów
From outside it is a modest, weatherboarded little church hidden among trees in its old churchyard. Inside, though, the ceiling is covered with Renaissance paintings from 1520–1531, where alongside religious scenes you will find the Jagiel…
Churches & monasteries
Tykocin
Two towers joined to the nave by semicircular arcades, pale yellow render and a red roof: this is the skyline anyone who has seen Tykocin from the Narew river will recognise. The late Baroque Holy Trinity Church closes the eastern side of…
Churches & monasteries
Ziębice
On the western edge of the old town, on ul. Wałowa, stands a church that from above looks like a cross with equal arms. It belonged to the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, who ran a hospital in Ziębice from the second half of the 13…
Churches & monasteries
Wolbrom
On the corner of Mariacka and Kościuszki streets in Wolbrom stands a small larch-wood church that for centuries served the poor and sick of an almshouse on the edge of town. It was built in 1638 under the will of a priest who had died the…
Churches & monasteries
Somonino
A stone plaque on the east wall of the church in Goręczyno carries a Latin inscription: the building was raised in 1639 to the glory of the Holy Trinity and All Saints, in the time of Brother Kasper Kochelius, procurator of the Carthusians…
Churches & monasteries
Baranów Sandomierski
The Church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist on Kościuszki Street in Baranów Sandomierski is a late-Renaissance building from 1604–1607, built by the Leszczyński family – the same family that raised Baranów's famous castle. For half…
Churches & monasteries
Brochów
The Church of St. Roch and St. John the Baptist in Brochów (BRO-hoof) is a fortified Renaissance church on the Bzura River where Frédéric Chopin was baptized in 1810. With three massive round towers and defensive walls, it looks more like…
Churches & monasteries
Skoroszyce
Locals simply call it the "church in the field". The neo-Gothic Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Częstochowa stands alone among fields and meadows, right by national road 46 from Nysa towards Niemodlin and Opole, abo…
Churches & monasteries
Pruchnik
Burned by Wallachian raiders, turned into a Calvinist meeting house, twice ravaged by invasions and rebuilt after fires – St Nicholas Church in Pruchnik has nearly six turbulent centuries behind it. Yet its Gothic stone body, braced by but…
Churches & monasteries
Rajcza
The Church of St Lawrence and St Casimir in Rajcza is also the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Casimir – one of four Marian shrines in the Żywiec region. The high altar holds a small painting on a copper plate which, according to its inscription,…
Churches & monasteries
Skała
St Nicholas Church in Skała (pronounced "SKAH-wah") is the historic parish church of a small town about 25 km north of Kraków, on the doorstep of Ojców National Park. Behind its Baroque appearance stand 14th-century Gothic walls, and besid…
Churches & monasteries
Sławków
A colony of bats lives in the roof space of Sławków's parish church, and it has its own Natura 2000 protected area. Beneath them stands a church that has kept its 13th-century brick chancel, a stone nave and a massive tower with walls 2.7…
Churches & monasteries
Sułoszowa
The Church of the Sacred Heart in Sułoszowa is the third church on this site – and each of its predecessors disappeared in dramatic circumstances. The present building, with a tall tower in its façade, was designed by Stefan Szyller and Ja…
Churches & monasteries
Karpacz
Vang Stave Church in Karpacz is a medieval Norwegian wooden church that has stood on a mountainside in southwest Poland since the 1840s. Built in the late 12th or around the turn of the 13th century in Vang, Norway, it was bought by the Ki…
Churches & monasteries
Chełmno
Chełmno calls itself the town of lovers, and the reason lies in its parish church: the Gothic Church of the Assumption keeps relics of St Valentine. The church deserves a visit regardless of Valentine's Day. It is one of the most unified G…
Churches & monasteries
Lubomierz
The soaring three-storey façade of this church looks down on Lubomierz from the town's highest point. It is the heart of the former Benedictine convent where the town's history began, and one of the grandest Baroque churches in this part o…
Churches & monasteries
Giecz
The first church on this spot was so small that it held only about 30 worshippers. On its foundations, around the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, builders raised the present single-nave church of granite blocks, with walls 110 cm thic…
Churches & monasteries
Chroberz
In 1940 the parishioners of Chroberz bribed the German occupation authorities and hid a bell from 1590, which was due to share the fate of two older bells requisitioned by the Austrians in 1916. That stubbornness suits this stone church on…