Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
Warszawa
The National Museum in Warsaw (Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, often shortened to MNW) is one of Poland's largest museums and the biggest art collection in the capital. It spans ancient Egypt and the medieval wall paintings of Faras in Nubia,…
Museums
Wrocław
The National Museum in Wrocław is one of Poland's major art museums and the best place to explore the art of Silesia, from medieval stone carving to 19th-century painting. It occupies a grand, vine-covered building on the Oder River, a 15-…
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
Warszawa
The Neon Museum in Warsaw (Neon Muzeum) is a private museum that rescues and displays Polish illuminated signs from the communist era: the glowing letters of cafés, cinemas and department stores that once lit up the country's streets at ni…
Museums
Krynica-Zdrój
The Nikifor Museum in Krynica-Zdrój (KRIH-nee-tsah ZDROOY) is a small but remarkable museum dedicated to Nikifor Krynicki, a self-taught painter from the Lemko minority who became one of Europe's best-known naive artists. It occupies the p…
Museums
Hel
The Museum of Coastal Defence in Hel occupies the concrete bunkers of a former German coastal battery, "Schleswig-Holstein," hidden in the pine forest at the entrance to Hel, the town at the tip of Poland's Hel Peninsula, north of Gdańsk.…
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
Suwałki
The Suwałki District Museum (Muzeum Okręgowe w Suwałkach; say "soo-VOW-kee") is the main museum of the Suwałki region in far northeastern Poland, housed in a handsome early-20th-century building in the town center. It holds Poland's larges…
Museums
Kalisz
The Kalisz Regional Museum is one of the oldest regional museums in Poland and the best place to get to know the history of Kalisz and the Prosna basin. In the building at 12 Kościuszki Street you can see, among other things, the denarius…
Museums
Ojców
The Nature Exhibition of Ojców National Park occupies the former Hotel pod Łokietkiem, built in 1860 when Ojców was a fashionable spa. The visit begins with 3D films and ends in front of a huge diorama in which dusk falls and night arrives…
Museums
Zakopane
The Oscypek Museum at ul. Jagiellońska 28 in Zakopane has no display cases. Instead of an exhibition there is a 90-minute show in which a baca (a highland head shepherd) makes oscypek, the region's famous smoked sheep's cheese, from milk t…
Museums
Białystok
The Sybir Memorial Museum in Białystok (pronounced "bee-AH-wih-stok") is one of Poland's most powerful modern history museums. It tells the story of Poles and other citizens of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who were exiled, impris…
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
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
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
Wałbrzych
The Porcelain Museum in Wałbrzych (roughly "VAH-wb-zhikh") is a small but rewarding museum in Lower Silesia, southwest Poland. Set in the neoclassical Alberti Palace in the city center, it displays more than 10,000 pieces of Silesian and E…
Museums
Warszawa
The Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) is the place to understand the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 — the single largest military effort by any European resistance movement in World War II, when the Polish underground Home Arm…
Museums
Poznań
The Greater Poland Uprising Museum in Poznań occupies the elegant 18th-century Guardhouse (Odwach, say "OD-vahh") in the middle of the Old Market Square, right next to the Town Hall. It tells the story of the 1918–1919 uprising that brough…
Museums
Susiec
In Oseredek, a village adjoining Susiec, you will find the only firefighting museum in the Lublin province. It holds nearly 500 exhibits – from hand-operated and horse-drawn fire pumps to the fire engine the museum's founder once drove to…
Museums
Olkusz
The Stefan Ząbczyński Olkusz Land Firefighting Museum is a small institution on ul. Floriańska in Olkusz, a few steps from the market square. Open since 1978, it displays 19th- and 20th-century firefighting equipment: horse-drawn pumps, en…
Museums
Pszczyna
In a low house with a shingle roof on Pszczyna's pedestrian street, you can print your own souvenir sheet on a historic press. The Wojciech Korfanty Silesian Press Museum describes itself as the only museum of its kind in Poland that, besi…
Museums
Lubliniec
At ul. Edyty Stein 2 in Lubliniec stands the townhouse where Edith Stein's grandparents – the Courant family – lived. Since 28 February 2009 its upper floor has housed the Pro Memoria Edith Stein Museum, devoted to the philosopher, Carmeli…
Technical monuments
Częstochowa
The Match Production Museum in Częstochowa (say "chen-stoh-HOH-vah") is the only museum of its kind in Poland: a historic match factory, the oldest on Polish soil, with its 1920s–30s production line still in place. It is a must for fans of…
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…