Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Blizne
All Saints' Church in Blizne (say "BLEEZ-neh") is a 15th-century Gothic wooden church in southeastern Poland, set on a small rise among old trees and surrounded by a complete group of historic timber parish buildings. Since 2003 it has bee…
Churches & monasteries
Dubiecko
A yellow, centrally planned church with a dome on a tall drum stands by the main road through Dubiecko. This is the former Greek Catholic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, built in 1927, which after years as a warehouse has found…
Museums
Przemyśl
The Baroque tower on Władycze Street was meant to be the bell tower of a cathedral that was never built — today its bells hang there as exhibits. The Museum of Bells and Pipes in Przemyśl is the only museum in Poland combining bell-foundin…
Palaces
Dukla
The Historical Museum in the Mniszech Palace in Dukla is housed in a late-Baroque magnate residence, one of the best-preserved palaces in southeastern Poland. Its "entre cour et jardin" layout, between a forecourt and a garden, is unique i…
Museums
Kolbuszowa
The Museum of Folk Culture in Kolbuszowa, and above all its Ethnographic Park, is one of the largest open-air museums in southeastern Poland. On almost 30 hectares beside the small Nil River stand more than 80 wooden buildings: thatched co…
Museums
Żarnowiec
In this manor house near Krosno, Maria Konopnicka wrote, among other works, "Rota" – a patriotic song that generations of Poles still know by heart. She received the house and its park in 1903 as a gift from the nation to mark 25 years of…
Museums
Przemyśl
The National Museum of the Przemyśl Land (Muzeum Narodowe Ziemi Przemyskiej) is the main museum in Przemyśl ("PSHEH-mishl"), a historic town on the San River in southeastern Poland, close to the Ukrainian border. Its modern building, a few…
Museums
Krosno
The Podkarpackie Museum in Krosno (kROHS-noh) is housed in the former Bishop's Palace on the edge of the old town, a yellow building at ul. Piłsudskiego 16. It is best known for "The History of Lighting," one of the most valuable kerosene…
Museums
Markowa
The Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II, in the village of Markowa (say "mar-KOH-vah") in southeastern Poland, tells the stories of local people who hid Jewish neighbors during the German occupation – and the price many…
Museums
Ustrzyki Dolne
The Bieszczady National Park Nature Museum in Ustrzyki Dolne ("oo-STSHI-kee DOL-neh") is the best place to understand the Bieszczady Mountains in about an hour: how they formed, who lived here and which animals roam the beech forests and h…
Historic sites
Leżajsk
At the Jewish cemetery on ul. Górna in Leżajsk stands the ohel – the tomb of Tzaddik Elimelech of Lizhensk (1717–1787), one of the fathers of Hasidism. It is the most visited tzaddik's grave in Poland: on the anniversary of his death, the…
Museums
Stobierna
The Slavic Settlement in Stobierna near Dębica is a timber stronghold on a hilltop, with a palisade, three thatched huts and a watchtower. The reconstruction refers to the 8th–9th centuries, when the Wisłoka valley lay within the state of…
Palaces
Zarzecze
The first guest at Zarzecze Palace was Princess Izabela Czartoryska herself – no surprise, since Magdalena Morska née Dzieduszycka modelled her residence on Czartoryska's estate at Puławy. The same architect, Christian Piotr Aigner, who de…
Historic sites
Rzeszów
The Rzeszów Cellars Underground Route (Rzeszowskie Piwnice) is a maze of old merchants' cellars beneath the main square of Rzeszów (say "ZHEH-shoof"), linked into a 396-meter (1,300-foot) tourist route. You descend as deep as 10 meters, sq…
Mountains & peaks
Ustrzyki Górne
Połonina Caryńska (roughly "po-WO-nee-na tsa-RIN-ska") is a grassy mountain ridge in Poland's Bieszczady Mountains, rising between the villages of Ustrzyki Górne and Brzegi Górne. Its highest point, Kruhly Wierch, reaches 1,297 m (4,255 ft…
Mountains & peaks
Wetlina
Połonina Wetlińska (roughly "po-WO-nee-na vet-LEEN-ska") is one of the signature ridges of the Bieszczady Mountains in Poland's far southeastern corner. This roughly 8 km massif is topped by open, grassy highland meadows called połoniny, w…
Museums
Łańcut
The Stables and Coach House at Łańcut Castle (say "WAHN-tsoot") hold one of Europe's most remarkable collections of horse-drawn carriages – and, unusually, it is still displayed in the very buildings where the Potocki family kept it. A sho…
Nature
Czarnorzeki
On a wooded ridge between Krosno and Rzeszów, sandstone pillars rise out of the forest, in places more than 20 metres high. Local legend says they are enchanted spinners – girls turned to stone for spinning flax on a holy day ("prządki" me…
Nature
Dubiecko
About 2.5 km from Dubiecko, among the fields and woods of the foothills, lies a raised bog where the insect-eating round-leaved sundew grows and rare garganeys can be seen. The Broduszurki reserve has protected it since 1996, and a nature…
Old towns & squares
Pruchnik
Once every house on the market square in Pruchnik had an arcade, so you could walk all the way around without leaving the shelter of a roof. Around 40 wooden buildings still stand around the square and along the lanes that lead off it, mos…
Old towns & squares
Przemyśl
Przemyśl Market Square (Rynek, say "RIH-nek"; the town is "PSHEH-mishl") is the heart of the old town of Przemyśl in southeastern Poland and one of the most unusual town squares in the country. Instead of a flat plaza, it slopes noticeably…
Old towns & squares
Rzeszów
The Market Square (Rynek) in Rzeszów (say "ZHEH-shoof") is the heart of the capital of Poland's southeastern Podkarpackie region – a cobbled square lined with pastel townhouses, with an ornate town hall in one corner, a statue of Tadeusz K…
Churches & monasteries
Dukla
The Shrine of St. John of Dukla (DOOK-lah) is a baroque Bernardine church and monastery in the small town of Dukla, in the Carpathian foothills of southeast Poland. It is the main place of devotion to St. John of Dukla, a medieval friar ca…
Churches & monasteries
Pruchnik
According to tradition, in 1680 a poor widow carried her child, bitten by an adder, up the hill, washed him with water from the spring below an image of the Virgin hanging on a tree – and the boy recovered. That story marked the beginning…