Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
Toruń
Młyn Wiedzy (say "mwin VYED-zih," meaning "Mill of Knowledge") is Toruń's hands-on science center, set inside the restored red-brick Richter Mills on ul. Łokietka. Instead of glass cases, you get exhibits to spin, push and experiment with,…
Technical monuments
Bydgoszcz
The Rother Mills (Młyny Rothera, roughly "MWIN-ih ROH-teh-rah") in Bydgoszcz are a restored 19th-century industrial mill complex on Mill Island, right in the city center. Today the brick and half-timbered buildings house a science and cult…
Fortifications
Chełmno
The town walls of Chełmno (say "HELM-no") are among the best-preserved medieval fortifications in Poland: almost 1.7 km (about a mile) of red-brick walls and 23 towers still ring nearly the whole Gothic old town. Together with the old town…
Fortifications
Toruń
Toruń's medieval city walls and gates are the best-preserved part of the town's fortifications: a long stretch of red-brick wall with towers and three Gothic gates running along the Vistula River. They form the famous riverside skyline of…
Museums
Toruń
The Ethnographic Museum in Toruń (Muzeum Etnograficzne, named after Maria Znamierowska-Prüfferowa) is an open-air museum right in the city center: a park of thatched wooden cottages, a post windmill, a watermill and a smithy, just outside…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
The Museum of Soap and History of Dirt (Muzeum Mydła i Historii Brudu) in Bydgoszcz is one of Poland's quirkiest museums and a genuinely fun stop in the city's compact Old Town. Instead of glass cases, you get a hands-on workshop where you…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
The Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum (Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego) is the main museum of Bydgoszcz, Poland, spread across several historic buildings downtown and on Mill Island. Its branches cover Polish painting, the larges…
Museums
Toruń
The Tony Halik Travelers' Museum (Muzeum Podróżników, "moo-ZEH-oom pod-roo-ZHNEE-kov") in Toruń is a small, colorful museum devoted to one of Poland's best-known TV explorers, who was born in this city, and to journeys across Latin America…
Museums
Toruń
The House Under the Star (Kamienica pod Gwiazdą, roughly "kah-mee-EN-ee-tsah pod gvee-AZ-dohn") is one of the most striking buildings on Toruń's Old Town Market Square and home to the Museum of Asian Art. Behind a Baroque facade covered in…
Museums
Toruń
The Museum of Toruń Gingerbread is a branch of the District Museum in Toruń (say "TOR-oon"), opened in 2015 in the former Gustav Weese gingerbread factory on ul. Strumykowa, at the edge of the UNESCO-listed Old Town. It is an interactive,…
Museums
Toruń
The Toruń Fortress Museum (Muzeum Twierdzy Toruń, "moo-ZEH-oom TFYER-dzih TOR-oon") is the newest branch of the city's District Museum, set inside the Chełmno Gate Barracks, a 19th-century Prussian barracks built into the earthen ramparts…
Museums
Brodnica
Brodnica Museum has no single building. Its collections are spread across three historic sites in the old town: the cellars of a Teutonic Knights' castle, a medieval town gate and a granary more than four hundred years old. A visit is real…
Museums
Bydgoszcz
The Land Forces Museum (Muzeum Wojsk Lądowych) in Bydgoszcz is a state museum devoted to Poland's land forces, telling the military story of Pomerania and Kuyavia from 18th-century uprisings through World War II to the Cold War. Outside st…
Museums
Włocławek
For almost 120 years Włocławek lived off faience – painted plates, jugs and vases became the city's calling card. In the main building of the Museum of the Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Lands you can see 432 pieces from the town's former factories,…
Museums
Żnin
The Pałuki Land Museum (Muzeum Ziemi Pałuckiej) in Żnin is the main museum of Pałuki, a small historic region between Greater Poland and Kuyavia in central Poland. Its headquarters occupy the red-brick former town hall of 1906 on Żnin's ma…
Gardens
Bydgoszcz
The Myślęcinek Botanical Garden (roughly "mish-len-CHEE-nek") in Bydgoszcz, north-central Poland, is a landscape garden rather than a greenhouse collection: around 60 hectares (150 acres) of a stream valley with a cascade of ponds, a limes…
Zoos
Toruń
The Toruń Zoological and Botanical Garden is a small, friendly zoo set inside a historic botanical garden on Bydgoska Street, about 1 km west of the Old Town. On less than 4 hectares you'll find around 50 animal species — European bison, m…
Zoos
Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz Zoo sits in the middle of Myślęcinek Forest Park on the northern edge of Bydgoszcz (say "BID-gosh"), a city in north-central Poland. Founded as a "Garden of Polish Fauna", it still focuses on animals native to Poland, such as Eur…
Museums
Wielka Nieszawka
The Olender Ethnographic Park in Wielka Nieszawka (say "VYEL-kah nyeh-SHAHV-kah") is Poland's first open-air museum devoted to the Olęder, or "Dutch," settlers who drained and farmed the marshy Vistula valley. Spread over more than 5 hecta…
Other
Bydgoszcz
The Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz, Poland, is the city's opera house on the Brda River, instantly recognizable by its three white drum-shaped "circles." Its construction famously dragged on for more than 34 years, and today it's one of Poland's…
Museums
Golub-Dobrzyń
In the manor house at Szafarnia the teenage Frédéric Chopin spent his summer holidays in 1824 and 1825. Here he first encountered real folk music, and he wrote funny letters home to his parents in the form of a newspaper – the "Szafarnia C…
Palaces
Lubostroń
Lubostroń Palace (roughly "loo-BOS-tron") is a Neoclassical country house built in 1795–1800 in the Pałuki region of central Poland and modeled on Palladio's famous Villa Rotonda near Vicenza. Set in a 40-hectare English-style landscape pa…
Palaces
Ostromecko
The Ostromecko Palaces (say "os-tro-METS-ko") are a pair of historic residences on a bluff above the Vistula River, about 14–15 km east of Bydgoszcz in north-central Poland. The Baroque-Rococo Old Palace holds a celebrated collection of hi…
Viewpoints
Toruń
The Toruń panorama from the Majdany Street viewpoint is the classic postcard view of the city: the entire Gothic Old Town lined up along the Vistula River, seen from the opposite bank. From here you take in St. John's Cathedral, the Town H…