Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Wrocław
In the mid-15th century this church's tower, spire included, stood 130.5 m tall — the highest in Silesia and among the tallest structures in the world at the time. Today's tower, rebuilt after a series of fires, is 91.46 m high and the thi…
Churches & monasteries
Warszawa
At the top of the facade on Krakowskie Przedmieście gleams a copper globe wrapped in a serpent and crowned with a gilded host — since the 18th century Varsovians have called it the "bania karmelicka", roughly "the Carmelite bulb". The Chur…
Churches & monasteries
Sandomierz
This bare brick church on St James's Hill looks austere, but it is one of the oldest churches in Poland built entirely of brick. Dominican friars began building St James the Apostle's Church around 1226, combining Romanesque forms with som…
Churches & monasteries
Bohoniki
The date this mosque was built was only discovered in 2005, when the year 1873 was found written on the entrance door frame during a major renovation. The wooden mosque at Bohoniki, a village near Sokółka in north-eastern Poland, is one of…
Castles
Poznań
The Imperial Castle in Poznań (Zamek Cesarski, roughly "ZAH-mek tseh-SAR-skee") is a massive neo-Romanesque palace built in 1905–1910 for Kaiser Wilhelm II — one of the youngest castles in Europe and one of the most surprising buildings in…
Castles
Brzeg
Brzeg Castle (say "BZHEG"), nicknamed "the Silesian Wawel", is one of the finest Renaissance residences in Central Europe, set on the Oder River about 45 km southeast of Wrocław. It is famous for its richly carved gatehouse lined with stat…
Castles
Szczecin
For centuries the Griffin dynasty, the dukes of Pomerania, held court on this hill above the Oder; later Swedish governors ruled from here, and the future Empress Catherine the Great grew up within its walls. The Castle of the Pomeranian D…
Zoos
Kraków
Kraków Zoo is not in a city park but on Pustelnik Hill in the middle of Wolski Forest, about 8 km from the Main Market Square. Its 20 hectares are home to around 1,500 animals from more than 270 species, over a hundred of them classed as e…
Churches & monasteries
Poznań
The Poznań Fara (parish church, pronounced FAH-rah), formally the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Stanislaus, is one of the finest Baroque churches in Poland. It stands on Gołębia Street, a two-minute wal…
Churches & monasteries
Jawor
The Church of Peace in Jawor (pronounced YAH-vor) is a vast half-timbered Lutheran church built in 1654–1655 in the small Silesian town of Jawor, southwest Poland. Plain as a barn from outside, it hides a dazzling interior of painted galle…
Churches & monasteries
Supraśl
The white walls by the River Supraśl hide one of the most important centres of Orthodox Christianity in Poland, and a history that has changed direction several times. The Monastery of the Annunciation was founded by the Lithuanian marshal…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
From Miodowa Street, the Tempel looks like an elegant town house with a triangular gable. Inside, visitors find a colourful, gilded hall in the Moorish style, quite unlike the austere Renaissance synagogues of Kazimierz. This Progressive s…
Churches & monasteries
Kudowa-Zdrój
From the outside it is a small Baroque chapel between a church and a bell tower in Czermna. Inside, the walls and vault are covered with about 3,000 closely packed skulls and bones. In total, the Skull Chapel and the crypt beneath its floo…
Churches & monasteries
Przemyśl
Przemyśl's archcathedral looks like a Baroque church, but beneath its floor lie the walls of a much older one. In the crypts, opened to visitors in 2014, you can see the foundations of the Romanesque rotunda of St Nicholas from the 12th ce…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
Behind a gate with a Hebrew inscription on Szeroka Street lies a small white prayer hall measuring just 10.4 by 5.1 metres. The Remuh Synagogue is the second-oldest synagogue in Kraków and the only one in the city where services are held r…
Landmarks
Zakopane
The landowner Zygmunt Gnatowski wanted to build an ordinary highlander's cottage in Zakopane to house his ethnographic collection. Stanisław Witkiewicz talked him into something new. The result, built in 1892–1893, was Villa Koliba, the fi…
Castles
Baranów Sandomierski
In the late 19th century Sławomir Odrzywolski, the first to survey the castle in detail, wrote that it could "boldly stand beside Wawel Castle". That remark gave it the nickname "Little Wawel". The Leszczyński family residence was built in…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Żywiec
Poland's best-known beer label — a couple dancing the Krakowiak folk dance — was created in 1956 with Americans in mind. A Polish emigrant who wanted to sell Żywiec beer in the USA insisted on the traditional Kraków costumes, because they…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Dębno Podhalańskie
The wooden church in Dębno (say "DEMB-no") is St. Michael the Archangel's Church, a late-Gothic log church in the Podhale highlands of southern Poland and one of the best-preserved medieval wooden churches anywhere in Europe. Part of the U…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Sandomierz
From the outside, Sandomierz Cathedral shows a Baroque façade and brick facing from the 19th century. Its greatest treasure is in the chancel, though: Byzantine-Ruthenian wall paintings from the first half of the 15th century. Paintings in…
Hidden gemMuseums
Duszniki-Zdrój
Lower Silesia once had around 100 paper mills. Only one survived — in the spa town of Duszniki-Zdrój, on the Bystrzyca Dusznicka river. Since 1968 it has housed the Museum of Papermaking, and handmade paper is still produced in its vat roo…
Hidden gemPalaces
Kozłówka
Kozłówka Palace (say "kozh-WOOF-kah") is a Baroque residence of the aristocratic Zamoyski family about 40 km north of Lublin in eastern Poland. Today it houses the Zamoyski Museum, whose interiors from around 1900 survive almost complete,…
Hidden gemFortifications
Srebrna Góra
Srebrna Góra Fortress (say "SREB-nah GOO-rah"; German Silberberg) is the largest and best-preserved mountain fortress in Poland, built by Prussia in 1765–1777 above a pass between the Owl Mountains and the Bardo Mountains in Lower Silesia.…
Hidden gemCastles
Zagórze Śląskie
The castle rises out of the forest on the summit of Choina hill, 450 metres above sea level, with Lake Bystrzyca spread out below. Grodno Castle in Zagórze Śląskie guarded the valley of the Bystrzyca river, which separates the Owl Mountain…