Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Mountains & peaks
Rzyki
Many hikers "climb Madohora" without knowing that the name was transferred to this peak by mapmakers' mistake. Its proper name is Łamana Skała (929 m) – the second-highest peak of the Little Beskids (Beskid Mały) and the highest in the And…
Mountains & peaks
Targoszów
Leskowiec is one of the best viewpoints in the Beskid Mały (Little Beskids): from the meadow on its summit you can see Babia Góra, Pilsko and, on a clear day, the Western Tatras. As a schoolboy Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II,…
Mountains & peaks
Wilkowice
The stone mountain hut on Magurka Wilkowicka is the third building on this spot – the two earlier wooden ones burned down within less than ten years. This peak in the Little Beskids (909 m, the fourth highest in the range) has been a favou…
Mountains & peaks
Wisła
Old folk tales say that deep inside this mountain there is a chamber where a rabbit of solid gold sits at a table. Malinów (1,115 m) is a broad, flat summit in the Silesian Beskids, on the boundary between the resort towns of Wisła and Szc…
Mountains & peaks
Istebna
At Szarcula Pass (about 760 m) rain falling on one side of the ridge ends up in the Vistula and the Baltic Sea, and on the other side flows via the Olza and the Oder. The pass is a shallow saddle in the Barania Góra range, on the main Euro…
Mountains & peaks
Brenna
Równica is an 884.6 m peak in the Silesian Beskids, rising between the Vistula valley at Ustroń and the Brennica valley at Brenna – the boundary of the two municipalities runs along its ridge. It is known for a wide meadow with a panorama…
Mountains & peaks
Gruszków
Skalnik (945 m) is the highest peak of the Rudawy Janowickie range and of the Rudawy Landscape Park, but the summit itself hides in spruce forest. For the view, walk a few hundred metres on to the granite tor of Ostra Mała, where steps cut…
Mountains & peaks
Soblówka
Poland's first PTTK "bacówka" – a small mountain hut – was supposed to be flown up to the meadow in one piece by helicopter from the village of Soblówka. That proved technically impossible, so the wooden hut was built on site on Hala Rycer…
Mountains & peaks
Jastrzębik
Bacówka nad Wierchomlą is a small PTTK mountain hut in the Sądecki Beskids, set in a broad clearing at 887 m above sea level on the trail between Runek and Pusta Wielka. From the clearing you can see the Radziejowa range and, on clear days…
Mountains & peaks
Koniaków
In the hamlet of Szańce in Koniaków, the Kohut family runs a Shepherding Centre: a wooden shepherd's hut, known locally as the "kolyba", a highlander shop and an educational farm with sheep and goats. The farm practises traditional grazing…
Mountains & peaks
Istebna
Signs give the height as 1220 m, but that figure refers to a survey point set almost 5 m above the ground on a concrete obelisk – the summit itself is about 1215 m. Barania Góra is the second-highest peak of the Silesian Beskids (after Skr…
Mountains & peaks
Klimkówka
The name "Beskid Gorlicki" was coined by pre-war hikers, for whom the town of Gorlice was the main gateway to the mountains between Krynica and Dukla. Geographers no longer use it, but the landscape hasn't changed: this is the western part…
Mountains & peaks
Smerek
Chatka Puchatka ("KHAHT-kah poo-KHAHT-kah", Polish for Pooh's Hut, named after The House at Pooh Corner) is the highest tourist building in the Bieszczady Mountains of southeastern Poland. Perched at about 1,228 m on the open grassland rid…
Mountains & peaks
Szczawno-Zdrój
Chełmiec made it onto the Crown of Polish Mountains list thanks to a mistake: the survey point was once placed on top of the observation tower, so the mountain "grew" to 869 m. Modern surveys give 850 m above sea level, and the title of hi…
Mountains & peaks
Myślenice
Chełm (614 m) rises above the town of Myślenice, and since 1989 visitors have been riding up on one of Poland's longest single-seat chairlifts. The journey of just over two kilometres from Zarabie ends next to a 15-metre lookout tower, fro…
Mountains & peaks
gmina Międzyzdroje
At Gosań the cliff of Wolin National Park reaches its highest point: the top of the bluff stands 93 m above sea level, and the park describes the hill as the highest elevation on the Polish coast. From the viewing platform, reached by a sh…
Mountains & peaks
Kamieńsk
The highest hill in central Poland was not shaped by the Ice Age but by the communist-era economy: it was piled up by the spreaders of the Bełchatów lignite mine. Góra Kamieńska rises to 405.6 m above sea level and about 195 m above its su…
Mountains & peaks
Chęciny
Miedzianka (pronounced roughly "myeh-JAN-kah", from the Polish word for copper) is a rocky limestone ridge, 354 m (1,161 ft) high, in the Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross) Mountains of south-central Poland. Its summit offers a full 360-degree vi…
Mountains & peaks
Ogrodzieniec
Wielki Grochowiec is a treeless, rocky hill rising to 486 m above sea level in Ryczów (Ogrodzieniec municipality), just north of the road to Żelazko. From its flat, cross-topped summit the view sweeps all the way around the horizon, and th…
Mountains & peaks
Żywiec
The steel cross on the bare summit of Średni Grojec can be seen from many parts of Żywiec and has become one of the town's symbols. Fewer people know that the higher, wooded top of the same hill once held a castle of robber knights, and la…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
Gubałówka is a long, largely treeless ridge above Zakopane with a view of the entire Polish Tatras and, in good weather, the Pieniny, Gorce and Żywiec Beskids as well. Since 1938 visitors have ridden up on a funicular built in just 168 day…
Mountains & peaks
Złatna
Despite its name, this wide clearing has nothing to do with "hala" in the botanical sense of an alpine zone — "hala" is the local word for a mountain pasture, and this one was named after an owner called Biegun. Hala Bieguńska, one of the…
Mountains & peaks
Żabnica
Hala Boracza is a grassy saddle at around 860 m in the Żywiec Beskids, above the villages of Żabnica and Milówka – and on it stands a PTTK mountain hut with a history unlike any other in these mountains. It was built by the Jewish sports c…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
Hala Gąsienicowa (roughly "HA-la gon-sheh-nee-TSO-va") is a wide mountain meadow in the Gąsienicowa Valley of Poland's High Tatras and one of the most popular hikes from Zakopane. From the trailhead at Kuźnice it takes a little over two ho…