Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Duszniki-Zdrój
Emperor Joseph II, future US president John Quincy Adams and the young Fryderyk Chopin all once stood on the summit of Orlica. This border peak (1,084 m) is the highest point of the Polish part of the Orlické Mountains (Góry Orlickie) and…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Wałbrzych
The last cart of coal came up from the Julia mine on 20 September 1996, and less than two decades later the site reopened as one of Poland's largest industrial heritage centres. At the Old Mine (Stara Kopalnia) in Wałbrzych you are often g…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Grzmiąca
Waligóra (German: Heidelberg, 936 m) is the highest peak of the Stone Mountains (Góry Kamienne) and of their Dry Mountains (Góry Suche) section, and one of the summits on the Crown of Polish Mountains list. It rises so steeply above the Th…
Hidden gemCastles
Łupki
On Castle Hill (383 m) above the River Bóbr stand the ruins of a castle that its custodians describe as the oldest stone castle in Silesia. The first masonry building went up here after 1160 on the initiative of Duke Bolesław the Tall, and…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Duszniki-Zdrój
It was meant to run the length of the Sudetes, from Zittau to near Opava – about 300 km of mountain road. Only two sections were ever built, and the longer one is the Sudeten Highway (Autostrada Sudecka), today regional road 389 from Polsk…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Krzeszów
The Basilica of the Assumption in Krzeszów (say "KSHEH-shoof") is the centerpiece of a former Cistercian abbey often called the "European Pearl of the Baroque." Hidden in a small village in the foothills of the Sudetes in Lower Silesia, it…
Hidden gemMuseums
Wrocław
Under a grassy mound on Na Grobli Street lies a 19th-century underground reservoir that stored Wrocław's drinking water for more than a hundred years. Today it houses Hydropolis, Poland's only science centre devoted entirely to water, wher…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Kłodzko
According to a 17th-century chronicler, in 1286 every village around Kłodzko had to hand over eggs — the whites went into the mortar for building the bridge, while town servants sold the yolks for a heller a spoonful. The Gothic bridge ove…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
gmina Stronie Śląskie
Rudawiec (1,106 m) is not the highest peak in the Bialskie Mountains, yet it made it onto the Crown of Polish Mountains, the popular list of the highest summits of each Polish range. The higher tops — Postawna, Brusek and the Czech Travna…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Rościszów
In May 1904 the rotten stairs of the first tower on Wielka Sowa gave way under two tourists from Wrocław – both fell to the floor below and escaped unhurt, and the wooden structure was pulled down that autumn. Two years later a solid 25-me…
Hidden gemWaterfalls
Przesieka
In 2007 this waterfall came close to losing most of its water to a small hydroelectric plant. Today Podgórna Falls in Przesieka still roars into its granite pool and is the third-highest waterfall in the Polish part of the Giant Mountains…
Hidden gemCastles
Ścinawka Górna
Just over a decade ago, Sarny Castle was a ruin that the state was unable to sell, and even the then Prince Charles took an interest in it. Today this Renaissance and Baroque residence on a bluff above the Włodzica River is one of the most…
Hidden gemCastles
Wałbrzych
For most of the 20th century Old Książ (Stary Książ) was thought to be a sham ruin – a folly invented for the Hochberg family's romantic park. Only archaeological research in the 1990s confirmed that beneath the 18th-century "stage set" li…
Hidden gemCastles
Świecie
The ruins on a gneiss crag above the village of Świecie near Leśna are not the castle on the Vistula of the same name, but one of three strongholds of the old Queis District (Okręg Kwisy) on the border between Silesia and Lusatia. Over the…
Hidden gemCastles
Międzylesie
Above the Renaissance portal of Międzylesie Castle runs a frieze of sixteen coats of arms of Silesian and Bohemian noble families – a pedigree carved in stone. Behind it stands a building that shows three eras at once: the medieval Black T…
Mountains & peaks
gmina Stronie Śląskie
Czarna Góra (pronounced roughly "CHAR-nah GOO-rah", meaning "Black Mountain") is a 1,205 m (3,953 ft) forested peak in the Śnieżnik Massif, part of the Sudetes on Poland's border with Czechia. Its slopes hold one of Lower Silesia's best-kn…
Technical monuments
Radków
The Road of a Hundred Bends (Droga Stu Zakrętów, roughly "DRO-gah stoo zah-KREN-toof") is the most scenic stretch of regional road 387 in the Table Mountains of southwestern Poland. Running about 23 km from Radków through Karłów and the Li…
Mountains & peaks
gmina Bystrzyca Kłodzka
Karol Wojtyła first came to Igliczna in 1955, walking from Kudowa with a group of students from Kraków, and 28 years later, as pope, he crowned the small statue from its shrine in Wrocław. Igliczna (845 m) is a conical peak of the Śnieżnik…
Mountains & peaks
Poręba
Jagodna is the highest mountain in the Bystrzyckie Mountains and one of the peaks of the Crown of Polish Mountains, a popular list of the highest summits of each Polish range. The climb is gentle, and the reward is a 23-metre lookout tower…
Lakes
Zagórze Śląskie
Beneath the waters of Lake Bystrzyckie lies the former village of Śląska Dolina (Schlesiertal), first recorded in 1548, and when the reservoir was drained in 2016 for repairs to the dam, its remains reappeared on the bottom. The lake is he…
Museums
Wrocław
The Pan Tadeusz Museum in Wrocław is a modern storytelling museum run by the Ossolineum, set in the Baroque House under the Golden Sun on the Market Square. Its centerpiece is the only surviving manuscript of "Pan Tadeusz," Adam Mickiewicz…
Palaces
Sobótka
The Neo-Renaissance "castle" in Sobótka-Górka, at the foot of Mount Ślęża, hides something far older than its 19th-century turrets: the medieval chapel and church of a former monastery of the Canons Regular of St Augustine. It is one of th…
Palaces
Bukowiec
Bukowiec Palace is the heart of one of the first landscape parks in Lower Silesia. In the late 18th century Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden turned a Renaissance manor house here into a Neoclassical residence and, inspired by his travels…
Mountains & peaks
Gruszków
Skalnik (945 m) is the highest peak of the Rudawy Janowickie range and of the Rudawy Landscape Park, but the summit itself hides in spruce forest. For the view, walk a few hundred metres on to the granite tor of Ostra Mała, where steps cut…