Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
Mokrsko
In Ożarów near Wieluń stands a historic wooden gentry manor house: built of larch, with four corner pavilions and a shingled Polish mansard roof. The construction date – 1757 – is carved on a ceiling beam together with the letters L.R. Sin…
Museums
Stara Wieś
The Wieluń Land Museum in Wieluń (VYEH-loon) tells the story of the small Polish town that German dive bombers attacked at dawn on September 1, 1939, the first morning of World War II. Housed in a restored 17th-century convent beside the o…
Technical monuments
Łódź
OFF Piotrkowska in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is a former 19th-century cotton mill at 138/140 Piotrkowska Street, reborn as one of Poland's best-known creative districts. Between red-brick halls, silver pipes and murals you will find restaurants,…
Churches & monasteries
Sulejów
Sulejów Abbey (say "soo-LEH-yoof") is one of the best-preserved Cistercian monasteries in Poland and a showpiece of Romanesque architecture on the Pilica River in central Poland. Its stone Church of St. Thomas Becket, consecrated in 1232,…
Palaces
Łódź
The Izrael Poznański Palace in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is the grandest factory owner's residence in Poland and the best place to see how a 19th-century textile boomtown made its fortunes. Locals call it the "Louvre of Łódź." Today it houses th…
Palaces
Nieborów
Nieborów Palace (say "nyeh-BOH-roof") is a Baroque residence of the Radziwiłł princes in central Poland, designed by the Dutch-born architect Tylman van Gameren and now a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw. Together with the romantic…
Palaces
Łowicz
On 4 May 1810, Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, son of Countess Maria Walewska and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, was born in the palace at Walewice. The child of a love affair that all Europe talked about later became French ambassador in London…
Landmarks
Wieluń
Wieluń has a town hall whose tower is a medieval city gate. In 1842 a late Neoclassical building designed by Henryk Marconi was added to the Gothic Kraków Gate – the only one of the town's old gates still standing. The clock on the tower h…
Churches & monasteries
Wieluń
The low brick walls in the centre of Wieluń trace the outline of the town's oldest parish church – St Michael the Archangel, for centuries the most important church in the Wieluń region. It survived fires and rebuildings but not the war: d…
Old towns & squares
Łódź
Before Łódź became a city of textile mills and Piotrkowska Street, it was a small farming town gathered around a single square. The Old Market Square (Stary Rynek) is the city's cradle – the first wooden town hall stood here, and in the 19…
Monuments & mounds
Łódź
Before it reached Łódź, it sailed some 12,000 nautical miles – from Tianjin in China to the port of Gdańsk. The mirror-polished, 3.5-metre WOŚP Heart stands on the square named after the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (Wielka Orkiest…
Museums
Sieradz
In one of the homesteads here you can see wooden devils, human figures and village scenes carved from a single piece of wood by Szczepan Mucha (1908–1982), a folk sculptor from the village of Szale. His homestead is one of the highlights o…
Museums
Tomaszów Mazowiecki
In January 1945 a German armoured artillery tractor tried to cross the frozen Pilica River on the ice and sank. It was only recovered in 1999, 54 years later, then restored and got running again. "Lufcik" is now the star exhibit of the Pil…
Technical monuments
Uniejów
In one windmill in Uniejów you can spend the night beneath the wind shaft and the great brake wheel; in the other you can see how flour was milled in the 1930s. Zagroda Młynarska (the Miller's Farmstead) is a small open-air museum on ul. A…
Historic sites
Łódź
Radegast Station in Łódź (say "WOODGE") is the former railway station from which German occupiers deported the Jews of the Łódź Ghetto, known as Litzmannstadt Ghetto, to the Chełmno (Kulmhof) and Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps. Today it is…
Other
Łódź
It all started with a refusal: the committee of Łódź's Walk of Fame would not give a star to Miś Uszatek (Floppy-Eared Teddy) because – as its chairman Jan Machulski reportedly put it – it was a waste of money on "some teddy bear". Instead…
Hiking & tourist trails
Stara Wieś
The red-marked Wieluń Jura Trail runs from Częstochowa to Wieluń and is usually given as 113 km long (some sources say 112 or 106.5 km). It continues the Eagles' Nests Trail – both start on the Old Market Square in Częstochowa – but has a…
Thermal baths & water parks
Uniejów
Termy Uniejów (Uniejów Thermal Baths; say "oo-NYEH-yoof") is a year-round thermal pool complex on the Warta River in the small town of Uniejów, in central Poland. In 2012 Uniejów was granted official spa-resort status thanks to its geother…
Technical monuments
Mokrsko
On a hill in Kocilew, a hamlet of Ożarów near Wieluń, stands a wooden post mill built in 1914 by the Kowalski family. Its sails sweep a circle about 17 metres across, with a surface of more than 50 m². After years as a ruin it was rebuilt…
Museums
Kwiatkówek
On the road from Łęczyca to Tum, in the village of Kwiatkówek, stands a thatched farmstead that preserves the rural world of the Łęczyca region around 1900. Its oldest resident is a wooden post mill built in 1820 – older than the period th…
Castles
Piotrków Trybunalski
The Royal Castle in Piotrków Trybunalski (pronounced "PYOT-kuv trih-boo-NAL-skee") is a Gothic-Renaissance residential tower of brick and sandstone built in 1512-1519 for King Sigismund I the Old. It served as the king's residence during p…
Castles
Rawa Mazowiecka
The octagonal tower of the castle in Rawa once held prisoners straight out of the history books: a son of the King of Sweden, a Swedish army commander and a self-proclaimed ruler of Moldavia. This Gothic castle, set in the marshy fork of t…
Castles
Oporów
Oporów Castle (roughly "OH-po-roof") near Kutno in central Poland is one of the best-preserved Gothic fortified residences in the country: a compact red-brick castle from the 1400s standing on an artificial island ringed by a moat, inside…
Castles
Wieluń
All that remains of the royal castle in Wieluń are its Gothic cellars from the 14th century, hidden beneath a classicist building at 2 Kazimierza Wielkiego Square. Today the county office (starostwo) works here, but within these walls peac…