Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Prudnik
Biskupia Kopa (say "bees-KOO-pya KOH-pa"; 890 m) is the highest peak of the Opawskie Mountains, a small range of the eastern Sudetes on the Poland–Czech border, and one of the peaks of the Crown of Polish Mountains. Beech forests, a mounta…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Katowice
The Cathedral of Christ the King in Katowice (Katowice: kah-toh-VEE-tseh) is the mother church of Upper Silesia, Poland's historic industrial heartland, and one of the most monumental churches built anywhere in the country in the 20th cent…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Olsztyn
In the winter of 1807 the French locked about 1,500 prisoners of war inside St James's Church in Olsztyn, and to survive the frost they burned almost everything made of wood. That is why the interior of today's co-cathedral is plainer than…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Legnica
It was meant to be a vast four-wing complex with two courtyards and a monumental tower, but only the first section was ever built. Even so, Legnica's New Town Hall, erected in 1902–1905, is impressive: five storeys, ornate gables, knights…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Sokołda
When Knyszyn Forest Landscape Park was established in 1988, it was the largest landscape park in Poland. Today it covers 72,860 ha in twelve municipalities north and east of Białystok, and forests make up 78% of its area. It is a good choi…
Nature
Jałówka
A dozen or so kilometres north of Białystok begins a forest that naturalists compare to the taiga. Knyszyn Forest covers about 1,050 km² of spruce and pine woods, springs and river valleys, making it the second-largest forest complex of th…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Katowice
Katowice Market Square (Rynek, pronounced roughly "RIH-nek") is the main square of Katowice, the largest city of Poland's Upper Silesia region, and the natural place to start exploring downtown. Trams cross it, the main streets meet here,…
Hidden gemNature
Łęknica
The Muskau Arch is a horseshoe about 40 km long, pressed into the ground by an ice sheet on both sides of the Lusatian Neisse — it is sometimes described as the only terminal moraine on Earth visible from space. For decades lignite, clay a…
Hidden gemLakes
Goczałkowice-Zdrój
Beneath the surface of Goczałkowice Reservoir lies the centre of the former village of Zarzecze, church and all, along with the historic border between Upper Silesia and Cieszyn Silesia. Filled in 1956, this reservoir on the Vistula covers…
Hidden gemLakes
Serwy
More than 40 metres deep, with clear water and a quiet zone where motorboats are banned, Lake Serwy lies on the edge of the Augustów Forest, about 20 km from Augustów. For years it has drawn people looking for swimming, canoeing and woodla…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Krutyń
The Masurian Landscape Park (Mazurski Park Krajobrazowy) protects more than 560 km² (215 square miles) of forest, glacial lakes and old villages in the heart of Poland's Masurian Lake District, between the resort towns of Mikołajki, Mrągow…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Władysławowo
The Coastal Landscape Park (Nadmorski Park Krajobrazowy) protects the most varied stretch of Poland's Baltic coast, north of Gdańsk: the whole Hel Peninsula, the cliffs at Rozewie and Jastrzębia Góra, coastal peat bogs and the shallow Puck…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Łódź
This octagonal square at the northern end of Piotrkowska Street is the point from which Łódź numbers its buildings, and the place where the industrial city began. It was laid out in 1823 as the marketplace of a new cloth-makers' settlement…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Kraków
Long before chartered Kraków and its Main Square existed, a trade route from Hungary and Bohemia to Mazovia and Greater Poland already ran this way. Grodzka Street leads from a corner of the Main Market Square to the foot of Wawel Hill and…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Stara Wieś
Here the River Warta swings in a great loop through the limestone hills of the Wieluń Upland, and along its banks springs pulse, pushing water out alternately from a rock crevice and from the bed of an oxbow lake. Załęcze Landscape Park, c…
Hidden gemCastles
Strzelce Opolskie
Empty windows, ivy on the walls and a pale tower above the park — this is how the former seat of the dukes of Strzelce, and later of the Colonna and Renard counts, has looked since 21 January 1945. Strzelce Opolskie Castle burned down toge…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Wadowice
On the south wall of the basilica is a sundial with the motto "Czas ucieka, wieczność czeka" — "Time flies, eternity awaits". According to the parish, it can be seen from the windows of the Wojtyła family's former flat. The Basilica of the…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
gmina Czarna Dąbrówka
In the early 20th century engineers shortened the Słupia: a 13-kilometre canal through Lake Głębokie cuts off a 26-kilometre bend of the river and gives the power station at Gałąźnia Mała a head of 38.5 metres. The Słupia Valley Landscape…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Iława
Lake Jeziorak stretches for 27.5 kilometres, making it the longest lake in Poland — and in 1993 the Iława Lake District Landscape Park was created around it. The lake has 17 islands, and cormorants, herons and white-tailed eagles nest in t…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Bochnia
The wall paintings in St Kinga's Chapel were designed by Jan Matejko, Poland's great history painter, and the rebuilding of the church after the fire of 1655 was funded by King John Casimir in this salt-mining town. The Basilica of St Nich…
Hidden gemGardens
Rudy
The ponds, dykes, forests and road layout around Rudy are largely the work of monks who arrived here in 1258. The Cistercian Landscape Compositions of Rudy Wielkie Landscape Park protects not only nature but also a landscape designed by Ci…
Hidden gemLakes
Międzybrodzie Bialskie
Lake Międzybrodzie fills the gorge of the River Soła through the Little Beskids and looks rather like a mountain fjord: narrow, about 5 km long and squeezed between wooded slopes. It was created in 1937 behind the Porąbka Dam, co-designed…
Hidden gemLakes
Augustów
Linguists trace the lake's name to the Yotvingian word methis, meaning "to throw", and a document from 1396 records it as Meten. Necko is a glacial ribbon lake that makes Augustów both a town and a resort: the town shore has beaches, prome…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Brzeg
The nave here rises 30 metres, one of the tallest in Silesia, and St Nicholas' is counted among the largest Gothic churches in the region. It was the burghers' parish church of Brzeg, served Lutherans for four centuries, burned out in 1945…