Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Korzkiew
On the high altar stands a small Gothic reliquary which, according to its inscription, holds a splinter of the True Cross and a piece of the table from the Last Supper. The Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist in Korzkiew was buil…
Museums
Zakopane
Jan Kasprowicz bought the wooden villa at Harenda in 1923 from an English painter for 500 pounds, money he had earned translating Shakespeare. He lived here for only three years, until his death in 1926, but his widow Maria kept the house…
Museums
Chrzanów
The Irena and Mieczysław Mazaraki Museum in Chrzanów is the regional museum of western Małopolska, housed in a historic manor building that locals call the "Inkwell" (Kałamarz). It covers the area's prehistory, the old town and its Jewish…
Museums
Kraków
The Under the Eagle Pharmacy (Apteka pod Orłem, roughly "AP-teh-kah pod OR-wem") in Kraków is one of the most moving places to visit in Podgórze, the district south of the Vistula where the Nazis sealed off the city's Jewish ghetto in 1941…
Mountains & peaks
Jastrzębik
Bacówka nad Wierchomlą is a small PTTK mountain hut in the Sądecki Beskids, set in a broad clearing at 887 m above sea level on the trail between Runek and Pusta Wielka. From the clearing you can see the Radziejowa range and, on clear days…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The Dominican Basilica in Kraków – the Basilica of the Holy Trinity on Stolarska Street – is a soaring Gothic brick church just a few minutes from the Main Market Square. Dominican friars have been based here since 1222, and the church is…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The Franciscan Basilica in Kraków – formally the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, on All Saints' Square (plac Wszystkich Świętych) – is one of the oldest churches in the Old Town and a must for anyone who loves Art Nouveau. Its interior…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
The John Paul II Centre "Do Not Be Afraid!" in Kraków is a pilgrimage and cultural complex in the Łagiewniki district (say "wah-gyev-NEE-kee"), built around the octagonal Sanctuary of St. John Paul II, a museum devoted to the Polish pope a…
Other
Pleśna
The Local Produce Centre in Rzuchowa was built on the site of an old carriage house beside the manor barn, at the heart of one of the most extensive surviving manor-and-park estates in the Małopolska region. It is run by farmers from the G…
Museums
Oświęcim
The Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim (osh-VYEN-cheem), with the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, tells the story of the town before 1940 – the town its Jewish residents called Oshpitzin. The center brings together the Jewish Museum, t…
Churches & monasteries
Owczary
The Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Owczary (say "ov-CHAH-ri") is one of the oldest Lemko tserkvas – wooden churches of the Eastern rite – in Poland, built in 1653 in a quiet valley of the Low Beskids near Gorlice. Since 2…
Churches & monasteries
Powroźnik
St. James's Church in Powroźnik (say "pov-ROZH-neek") is a former Lemko tserkva – an Eastern-rite wooden church – regarded as the oldest wooden tserkva in the Polish Carpathians. It stands just outside the spa towns of Krynica-Zdrój and Mu…
Churches & monasteries
Tylicz
This dark red wooden church with three onion domes has stood in Tylicz's cemetery since 1743. It is a Lemko church with an unusual layout – two side chapels off the nave, a feature found elsewhere in the region only at Milik. Inside is an…
Churches & monasteries
Brunary
St. Michael the Archangel's Church in Brunary Wyżne (say "broo-NAH-ri VIZH-neh") is an 18th-century former Lemko Greek Catholic tserkva – a wooden church of the Eastern rite – in the Low Beskids of southern Poland, now the Roman Catholic p…
Churches & monasteries
Kwiatoń
St. Paraskeva's Church in Kwiatoń (say "KFYAH-tone") is a former Lemko Greek Catholic tserkva – a wooden church of the Eastern rite – in the Low Beskids of southern Poland. Experts regard it as the model example, and arguably the most beau…
Churches & monasteries
Muszyna
The wooden church in Złockie does not look like a typical Lemko church. Instead of three towers in a row, it has a cross-shaped plan and a tall octagonal drum with a dome – a pattern foreign to the Lemko region but popular in Russia and th…
Churches & monasteries
Krynica-Zdrój
On the road from Grybów to Krynica-Zdrój, in the valley of the Mostysza stream, stands a church darkened by its shingles and crowned with three silvery onion domes. This is the former Greek Catholic church of St Michael the Archangel in Po…
Museums
Rabsztyn
This whitewashed wooden cottage from 1862 is where Antoni Kocjan was born – the designer whose gliders made up half of all those built in Poland in the 1930s, and during the war a key figure in uncovering Germany's V-2 rockets. The house w…
Thermal baths & water parks
Chochołów
Chochołowskie Termy (roughly "ho-ho-WOV-skyeh TER-mi") in the village of Chochołów is the largest thermal pool complex in Poland's Podhale region, the highland area at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. It offers about 4,500 m² (48,000 sq ft…
Nature
Wierzchowie
The Kluczwoda Valley (pronounced roughly "klooch-VO-dah"), also called the Wierzchówka Valley, is one of the eight "Kraków Valleys" – a winding wooded gorge lined with white limestone crags, the scant ruins of a medieval castle and the lon…
Churches & monasteries
Babice
This dark larch-wood church once stood more than 60 kilometres away, in Niegowić near Bochnia. It was here, in 1948–1949, that a newly ordained curate, Father Karol Wojtyła – the future Pope John Paul II – served his first post. In 1973 th…
Churches & monasteries
Nowy Targ
The wooden Church of the Holy Trinity and St Anthony the Abbot in Łopuszna (Nowy Targ municipality) is a late-Gothic building from the last decade of the 15th century, consecrated in 1504. It stands by the Dunajec river, where the Czerwonk…
Old towns & squares
Kraków
For centuries, kings rode along this same route to Wawel to be crowned, and funeral processions carried their coffins the same way. The Royal Route runs from Matejko Square through St Florian's Gate, the Main Market Square and Grodzka and…
Museums
Ciężkowice
On a hill above the Biała river, opposite Ciężkowice, stands a white manor house with a columned porch – Ignacy Jan Paderewski's only home in Poland. The pianist and prime minister bought it in 1897, and his original Petrof piano now stand…