Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Technical monuments
Złotoryja
Złotoryja takes its name from gold, panned here as early as the Middle Ages, and its 13th-century Latin name was Mons Aurum, Gold Hill. The Aurelia mine lets you go underground on the slope of St Nicholas Hill and see what the local hunt f…
Technical monuments
Krośnice
At weekends the steam locomotive Px48-1907, built in 1955 and once used on the Żuławy Narrow-Gauge Railway, puffs through the park in Krośnice. The Krośnice Narrow-Gauge Railway is one of the few working park railways in Poland. Its 750 mm…
Technical monuments
Łódź
Księży Młyn ("Priest's Mill") is the largest historic factory complex in Łódź from the second half of the 19th century: a 207-metre spinning mill, brick workers' houses, a school, a fire station, a hospital and a manufacturer's palace, all…
Technical monuments
Gąski
Gąski Lighthouse (GOWN-skee) is one of the tallest and most photogenic lighthouses on Poland's Baltic coast: a slender red-brick tower rising from the trees about 100 m from the shore in the village of Gąski, roughly 22 km (14 miles) east…
Technical monuments
Osetnik
Stilo Lighthouse in Osetnik, near Sasino on Poland's Baltic coast, is one of the most striking lighthouses in the country: a slender, sixteen-sided metal tower painted in red, white and black bands, hidden in pine forest on a dune about a…
Technical monuments
Ustka
Ustka Lighthouse is a red-brick tower from 1892 guarding the harbor entrance of Ustka (say "OOST-kah"), a seaside resort on Poland's central Baltic coast. Attached to a handsome red-brick pilot station with stepped gables, it is the town's…
Technical monuments
Darłowo
A brick tower with a white dome stands right at the mouth of the Wieprza River, on the east side of the harbour channel in Darłówko, the seaside district of Darłowo. It is just 22 m tall, and its walls are so exposed to storms that the sea…
Technical monuments
Władysławowo
Rozewie Lighthouse (ro-ZEV-yeh) stands on Cape Rozewie, among old beech woods a few kilometers west of Władysławowo on Poland's Baltic coast, north of Gdańsk. There are actually two towers you can climb: Rozewie I, lit in 1822 and still wo…
Technical monuments
Sopot
Sopot Lighthouse is a slender 30 m tower on Spa Square in Sopot, right next to the entrance to the famous wooden pier. Its story is one of the quirkiest on the Polish Baltic coast: the "lighthouse" is really a decorative chimney built for…
Technical monuments
Świnoujście
The Świnoujście Lighthouse (roughly "shvee-no-OOY-shcheh") is the tallest lighthouse on the Polish coast and a striking piece of 19th-century engineering. Its brick tower rises 67.7 m (222 ft) above the mouth of the Świna River, on Wolin I…
Technical monuments
Łódź
Manufaktura in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is a vast 19th-century textile factory turned into the city's liveliest destination. Across 27 hectares (67 acres) of red-brick mills built by cotton magnate Izrael Poznański, you'll now find museums, a m…
Technical monuments
Strzeleczki
Anyone driving the local road from Komorniki towards Kórnica sees walls rising out of the woods that look more like an aristocratic residence than farm buildings. This is Amerykan – the ruins of a 19th-century mill complex on the Osobłoga…
Technical monuments
Złoty Potok
The name is said to come from "kołatanie", the rhythmic clatter of the working water wheel. The wooden Kołaczew mill in Złoty Potok stands on the upper course of the Wiercica stream, where it flows out of the Green Pond (Staw Zielony). The…
Technical monuments
Wilkowyja
The Mill on the Lutynia (Młyn nad Lutynią, roughly "mlin nahd loo-TIH-nyon") in Wilkowyja is a restored wooden water mill on the edge of Jarocin in western Poland. It's famous among Polish readers thanks to a 1946 short story by Jarosław I…
Technical monuments
Bydgoszcz
The Rother Mills (Młyny Rothera, roughly "MWIN-ih ROH-teh-rah") in Bydgoszcz are a restored 19th-century industrial mill complex on Mill Island, right in the city center. Today the brick and half-timbered buildings house a science and cult…
Technical monuments
Bytów
Six brick arches on granite piers span the Boruja valley as if the builders had set out to give Bytów its own Roman aqueduct. The railway bridge of about 1884 is over 73 metres long and 16 metres high, and for years people said that no tra…
Technical monuments
Maurzyce
The modest steel truss over the little Słudwia River near Łowicz is the world's first welded road bridge. It was designed by Professor Stefan Bryła and opened on 12 August 1929. Because it was welded rather than riveted, the structure weig…
Technical monuments
Giżycko
The swing bridge in Giżycko (say "gee-ZHITS-ko") is a working piece of 19th-century engineering in the center of this lakeside town in north-eastern Poland. Built in 1898 over the Łuczański Canal, its roughly 100-ton steel span still turns…
Technical monuments
Warszawa
The neo-Renaissance towers at both ends of the bridge look like fortress gates, and for good reason: the tsarist military authorities insisted on them. Poniatowski Bridge, nicknamed Poniatoszczak by Varsovians, links Jerusalem Avenue (Alej…
Technical monuments
Szczucin
The Road Museum in Szczucin (roughly "SHCHOO-cheen") is one of the most unusual free things to do in southern Poland: an open-air collection of steam rollers, snowplows and road-building machines, plus a walking trail that takes you throug…
Technical monuments
Paczków
On 15 July 1977 the last cart of coke at the Paczków gasworks was quenched – not with water, but with a symbolic glass of champagne. That cart, coke and all, now stands in the museum. Paczków has the only site in Poland where the complete…
Technical monuments
Chorzów
Until 1934 Chorzów was called Królewska Huta – Royal Ironworks – after the plant around which the town grew. The hall of that ironworks' former power station now houses the Museum of Metallurgy, the first museum in Poland devoted entirely…
Technical monuments
Hajnówka
In Hajnówka, on the edge of the Białowieża Forest, you can do more than look at an old smithy – you can swing a hammer at red-hot iron yourself. The private Museum of Blacksmithing and Locksmithing at ul. Lipowa 1 is run by Stanisław Mierz…
Technical monuments
Osieczna
On a hill by the road from Osieczna to Leszno, three wooden post mills have stood side by side for more than 250 years. The two oldest date from 1761 and 1763, and the museum says this is the only place in Poland with three original 18th-c…