Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Old towns & squares
Cieszyn
Cieszyn Market Square is a rectangular square of around 6,800 m², with the St Florian fountain at its centre and a classicist town hall on its south side. It is lined with arcades and townhouses whose history goes back to the 16th century,…
Old towns & squares
Ciężkowice
Ciężkowice is one of the few small towns in Lesser Poland where wooden houses with arcades have survived around the market square – which is why it features on the Lesser Poland Wooden Architecture Route. In the middle stands a Neoclassica…
Old towns & squares
Darłowo
Above the entrance to Darłowo's town hall hangs a stone tablet that sums up the town's history in a few lines – and ends by saying the town hall was rebuilt in 1725, "and let it be for the last time". The wish came true: the town council s…
Old towns & squares
Gniezno
Gniezno Market Square (Rynek, say "RIH-nek") is the heart of the old town in Gniezno, a small, friendly square lined with pastel townhouses, from which cobbled Tumska Street runs straight up to the cathedral on Lech Hill. Rebuilt after a g…
Old towns & squares
Gołdap
Victory Square (Plac Zwycięstwa) is the former market square of Gołdap – a space so large that before the war it was regarded as the second-largest market square in East Prussia. Today it is hard to recognise the old trading centre: instea…
Old towns & squares
Jelenia Góra
Jelenia Góra's Market Square (Town Hall Square, Plac Ratuszowy; say "YEH-lehn-yah GOO-rah") is the heart of an old Silesian linen-trading town: a rectangular square lined with arcaded houses, with a Baroque-Classical town hall in the middl…
Old towns & squares
Kazimierz Dolny
The Market Square in Kazimierz Dolny is the heart of one of Poland's prettiest small towns: an irregular, cobbled square with a wooden-roofed well in the middle, ornate Renaissance townhouses with arcades, and a parish church looking down…
Old towns & squares
Kłodzko
Kłodzko Market Square (say "KWOTS-ko"), officially Bolesław Chrobry Square, is the heart of the old town in Kłodzko, a historic fortress town in southwestern Poland about 90 km (55 miles) south of Wrocław. The square is famously sloped, li…
Old towns & squares
Koziegłowy
In the middle of the market square in Koziegłowy, low stone walls rise out of the paving like a small ruin. They are the foundations of the old town hall, uncovered by archaeologists and deliberately left on show in the new surface. The re…
Old towns & squares
Krapkowice
In 1806 the house at number 4 on Krapkowice's market square was home to Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother, who was then commanding a French corps in Silesia. It is the oldest surviving house on the square and the best starting p…
Old towns & squares
Krościenko nad Dunajcem
The market square in Krościenko nad Dunajcem measures about 120 by 70 metres – larger than the Old Town Market Square in Warsaw. It was laid out when the town was founded in 1348 and still keeps its medieval plan: a town hall in the middle…
Old towns & squares
Lądek-Zdrój
Lądek-Zdrój is often called the oldest spa in what is now Poland, but its market square is older than the resort's fame. The town received its charter in 1282, and around the town hall you still find 17th- and 18th-century houses and a Bar…
Old towns & squares
Lanckorona
The market square in Lanckorona slopes so steeply that it is considered the steepest on the Amber Route, with a gradient of about 9.5%. It is lined with wooden, shingle-roofed houses with deep arcades and small windows, rebuilt after a gre…
Old towns & squares
Łódź
Before Łódź became a city of textile mills and Piotrkowska Street, it was a small farming town gathered around a single square. The Old Market Square (Stary Rynek) is the city's cradle – the first wooden town hall stood here, and in the 19…
Old towns & squares
Lublin
Lublin's Old Town Market Square (Rynek) is the heart of one of the best-preserved historic centers in eastern Poland. Colorful merchant houses frame an irregular square, and in the middle stands the elegant Neoclassical Crown Tribunal, the…
Old towns & squares
Lwówek Śląski
The tower of Lwówek's town hall is exactly as tall as its south wall is long, and the whole building follows proportions of 1 to 3 — just like the square it stands on. The town hall is also larger than Wrocław's, even though the town today…
Old towns & squares
Maków Podhalański
On the rim of a fountain sits a bronze woman in folk dress, bent over her embroidery, while water spurts from three stone poppy heads behind her. It sums up what Maków Podhalański is known for: white embroidery and the poppy in its coat of…
Old towns & squares
Niemodlin
The market square in Niemodlin is neither square nor rectangular – it is spindle-shaped, widening in the middle and narrowing at both ends. Its sides are lined with town houses mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries, and a Gothic church a…
Old towns & squares
Nowy Sącz
The Main Market Square in Nowy Sącz (Rynek, roughly "NO-vih SONCH") is the historic heart of this southern Polish city and one of the largest market squares in the country – second only to Kraków's in the Małopolska region. A grand, freshl…
Old towns & squares
Nowy Targ
Nowy Targ Market Square is a 138 × 110 m rectangle – about 1.5 ha – a square built to suit a town founded for trade. It was laid out in 1346, when the town received its charter, and at its centre stands a 19th-century town hall with a cloc…
Old towns & squares
Nysa
Nysa Market Square is a medieval market place measuring about 200 × 100 m and for centuries the heart of the capital of a bishops' duchy. The war destroyed most of its buildings, but some gems survived: the Renaissance Town Weigh House, a…
Old towns & squares
Olkusz
The Market Square in Olkusz (say "OL-koosh") is the heart of Poland's old "Silver Town," a medieval silver and lead mining center about 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Kraków. Since a makeover completed in 2013, the square has been car-free,…
Old towns & squares
Olsztyn
Olsztyn's Old Town Market Square (Rynek Starego Miasta, pronounced roughly "OL-shtin") is the heart of the capital of Warmia and Masuria in northeastern Poland and the natural starting point for exploring the city's compact old town. A red…
Old towns & squares
Olsztyn
High above Olsztyn's market square, on a six-metre pole, balances "W nieskończoność" ("Infinity"), a sculpture by Jerzy Kędziora, while a glass case nearby holds a 1:100 scale model of the castle. The original is visible from the square: t…