Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
Radków
On some of the sandstone towers of the Radków Rocks you can still see inscriptions carved by the Silesian Forestry Society in the first half of the 20th century — traces of the time when these cliffs bore the German name Wünschelburger Leh…
Landmarks
Lubin
The white town hall with a copper-clad tower is the most recognisable building in Lubin, a town now known mainly for its copper mines. Inside is the Historical Museum, where you can step into a recreated flat of a mining family from the co…
Nature
Lubawka
The Kruczy Kamień reserve protects the summit of Krucza Skała (681 m) and its southern slope, which drops in a cliff several dozen metres high into the Krucza Valley. It lies about 2.5 km south of the centre of Lubawka, in the Krucze Mount…
Old towns & squares
Międzylesie
The market square in Międzylesie is not square at all – it is an elongated triangle, with a Baroque column topped by the Virgin Mary rising from a small green in the middle. It was put up after a run of disasters struck the town at the end…
Old towns & squares
Lubomierz
Lubomierz escaped destruction in the Second World War, so its centre has kept the shape of a medieval market town. At its heart is plac Wolności (Freedom Square) – the old market place and main street in one, lined almost entirely with his…
Old towns & squares
Bolesławiec
In the Wedding Hall of Bolesławiec town hall, newlyweds stand beneath a vault that Wendel Roskopf modelled on the royal Vladislav Hall at Prague Castle. That is the best reason to look not only into the ceramic shop windows on Bolesławiec'…
Old towns & squares
Bolków
Bolków's market square is not flat: it slopes towards the town hall, and steps lead up to the tall arcades of the houses on its west side. This layout is rare in Poland and easy to appreciate from any corner. Bolków Castle, also known toda…
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
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
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
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
Świdnica
Świdnica Market Square (say shfeed-NEE-tsah) is one of the best-preserved old town squares in Lower Silesia, the historic region of southwest Poland around Wrocław. Colorful Baroque townhouses frame a town hall with a rebuilt lookout tower…
Old towns & squares
Wałbrzych
On top of a corner house on Wałbrzych's Market Square sits an anchor – in a mountain town hundreds of kilometres from the sea. It symbolises the old trading links between Wałbrzych (German: Waldenburg) and lands overseas. The town's oldest…
Old towns & squares
Ząbkowice Śląskie
Ząbkowice Śląskie's market square is dominated by a neo-Gothic town hall with a 72-metre tower – already the sixth on this spot since the town was founded. Its predecessor was destroyed in the great fire of 24 April 1858, and to pay for th…
Old towns & squares
Złotoryja
Legend has it that after the plague of 1553 only seven men survived in Złotoryja, and on Christmas Eve they met in the market square to sing hymns together. Ever since, a shared town Christmas Eve on the square has been a tradition, revive…
Monuments & mounds
Sobótka
On the slopes of Ślęża and in Sobótka stand granite statues that researchers link with the Celtic cultural sphere and usually date to the La Tène period, around 400–200 BC. The best known are the Bear on the summit and the Maiden with a Fi…
Technical monuments
Świdnica
On the main avenue of General Władysław Sikorski Park in Świdnica stands a red triplane that is hard to walk past. It is a replica of the Fokker Dr.I, the aircraft forever linked with Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron", who spent part…
Nature
Szczytna
On the south-eastern edge of the Table Mountains plateau, between Batorów and the Radków Rocks, dozens of sandstone outcrops shaped like mushrooms, clubs, towers and gateways stand in spruce forest. The Rock Mushrooms (Skalne Grzyby, Germa…
Landscape parks
Sobótka
During two Scandinavian glaciations the solitary Ślęża stood above the ice sheet like an island — geologists call such a peak a nunatak, and the gabbro boulder fields on its slopes are a souvenir of that era. Ślęża Landscape Park, establis…
Landmarks
Wrocław
At the entrance to Stare Jatki from Odrzańska Street stands a group of bronze animals – a goose with an egg, a goat, a pig, a piglet, a duck, a rabbit and a giant rooster – and a plaque in the cobbles reads: "In honour of slaughtered anima…
Viewpoints
Lądek-Zdrój
Trojak is the mountain spa guests in Lądek-Zdrój have been climbing for generations. The summit is 766 metres high, and from its gneiss rocks and a viewing platform built in 2022 you can see almost the whole Kłodzko Valley. A few minutes f…
Nature
Jawor
In the rocks above the Jawornik stream you can see pillow lavas – the traces of undersea volcanic eruptions from the early Palaeozoic. About a kilometre from the village of Myślibórz, on Rataj hill, the basalt columns of the Małe Organy My…
Technical monuments
Bolesławiec
On the western edge of Bolesławiec the railway leaps across the Bóbr valley on 489 metres of stone arches. Built from pale sandstone and opened in 1846, the viaduct looks like a Roman aqueduct transplanted to Lower Silesia – and trains bet…
Technical monuments
Srebrna Góra
The two brick viaducts on the slopes of Srebrna Góra are the most striking relic of the Owl Mountains Railway (Eulengebirgsbahn) – a line that had to use a rack rail on its steepest section. The Żdanów viaduct (about 24 m high) and the Sre…