Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Landmarks
Nysa
The Romans inscribed S.P.Q.R. – "the Senate and People of Rome" – on their buildings. In 1701 the burghers of Nysa carved S.P.Q.N., "the Senate and People of Nysa", on their fountain, and there is hardly better proof that the town known as…
Fortifications
Świnoujście
The fort's German name – Engelsburg, the Angel's Castle – is no accident. Its round, stepped brick tower reminded the builders of Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo, the papal fortress on the Tiber. Fort Angel was built in the mid-19th century as a…
Fortifications
Świnoujście
Fort Gerhard (Fort Gerharda) in Świnoujście is one of Europe's best-preserved 19th-century Prussian coastal forts, and a rare "living museum" where history is acted out rather than just displayed. It guards the mouth of the Świna River on…
Fortifications
Siedliska
Fort I "Salis Soglio" in Siedliska lies just a few dozen metres from the Ukrainian border – on a clear day you can see the border posts from its ramparts. It is one of the best-preserved forts of the outer ring of the Przemyśl Fortress, bu…
Fortifications
Toruń
Fort IV in Toruń is the best-preserved and most visitor-friendly fort of the 19th-century Toruń Fortress — a Prussian stronghold of red-brick barracks, vaulted casemates and a dry moat that you can explore on your own by day or with a guid…
Fortifications
Karłów
On top of Ptak Hill (841 m), a ten-minute walk from the Road of a Hundred Bends, stand the remains of a Prussian guardhouse built in 1790. From its rocky platform, Szczeliniec Wielki and the village of Karłów look like a scale model. Fort…
Fortifications
Nysa
Fort Prusy (Fort Prussia) in Nysa (say "NIH-sah") is the star attraction of the Nysa Fortress, a Prussian citadel laid out as a perfect five-pointed star in 1743-1745 on the hills above the Nysa Kłodzka river in southwest Poland. Seen from…
Fortifications
Poznań
Above the gate of Fort VII on Polska Street in Poznań hangs the sign "Konzentrationslager Posen". This is not a military attraction but a place of remembrance: in 1939–1944 the Germans ran a camp here that they themselves called the "camp…
Fortifications
Świnoujście
Fort Zachodni (West Fort) in Świnoujście is a 19th-century Prussian coastal battery at the mouth of the Świna River, now home to the Fortress History Museum. Ringed by a water-filled moat and overgrown with grass, it sits on the western ba…
Amusement parks
Łeba
Funlandia is an inflatable amusement park in Łeba at ul. Tysiąclecia 10 – almost 700 m² of bouncing, sliding and obstacle courses. Much of the fun takes place under cover, so the park comes in handy on family holidays by the Baltic when th…
Amusement parks
Polanica-Zdrój
Pirates, a jungle and a zip line on 7,500 m² — FunPark in Polanica-Zdrój is an outdoor playground with 14 attractions, where parents can relax over coffee on the terrace. The park was created near the centre of the spa town, on Kłodzka Str…
Museums
Gliwice
Funzeum – Children's Imagination Centre fills 4,000 m² in the Europa Centralna shopping centre in Gliwice. Despite the name, nobody looks at anything through glass here – the motto translates as "You don't tour it. You do it." Children bui…
Museums
Międzyzdroje
The Wax Figures Museum in Międzyzdroje (pronounced roughly "myen-dzi-ZDROY-eh") is a popular indoor attraction in one of Poland's best-known Baltic Sea resorts, on the island of Wolin near the German border. Set on the promenade a few step…
Museums
Rogalin
On the east wall of the largest room, where an altar would stand in a church, hangs "The Maid of Orleans" – Jan Matejko's largest painting. That was the plan of Edward Aleksander Raczyński, who in 1910 gave his collection its own publicly…
Technical monuments
Katowice
The Szyb Wilson Gallery at 1 Oswobodzenia Street in Katowice's Janów-Nikiszowiec district occupies the former miners' assembly hall and bathhouse of the Wilson shafts of the Wieczorek coal mine. It has been open since 2001, and with nearly…
Monuments & mounds
Łódź
On Piotrkowska Street you can sit on a bench next to the poet Julian Tuwim, lean on Arthur Rubinstein's piano, or pull up a chair at a table with the textile tycoons Karl Scheibler and Izrael Poznański. The Gallery of Great Łódź Citizens (…
Museums
Sanok
The Zdzisław Beksiński Gallery in Sanok ("ZJEE-swaf bek-SHEEN-skee", "SAH-nok") holds the world's largest collection of work by the Polish painter famous for his haunting, dreamlike landscapes of ruins, skeletal figures and burning skies.…
Zoos
Gdańsk
Gdańsk Zoo in Oliwa (Gdański Ogród Zoologiczny, roughly "guh-DAHN-skee OH-groot zoh-oh-loh-GEECH-nee") is the largest zoo in Poland by area, set in the forested Leśny Młyn valley inside the Tricity Landscape Park on the edge of Gdańsk. You…
Nature
Góra Świętej Anny
St Anne's Mountain (Góra Świętej Anny), known for its sanctuary and Calvary, is also a former volcano. Some 27 million years ago a cone of lava and tuff rose here, and the dark rock on which the monastery stands is what remains of it. Sinc…
Nature
gmina Niegowa
The Northern Jura Geopark is not a single spot on the map but a scattered geotourism area in the northern part of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, including the area around Olsztyn near Częstochowa. The Polish Geological Institute has publis…
Technical monuments
Łęknica
The Babina Former Mine Geo-Trail near Łęknica (pronounced "wenk-NEE-tsah") is a free forest trail past dozens of colorful lakes that formed in the pits of an old lignite mine on Poland's western border with Germany. It lies within the Musk…
Other
Jaworzno
In the walls of the former Sadowa Góra quarry in Jaworzno, quarrying exposed the bones of a nothosaur – a marine reptile from around 230 million years ago. On the quarry floor, a rippled stretch of Triassic seabed has survived, probably sh…
Amusement parks
Piechowice
A three-metre ant, a five-metre caterpillar and a butterfly that died out in the Sudetes in the 19th century — at GIGANTEI in Piechowice, insects have grown to giant size. This family theme park combines the legend of the Mountain Spirit w…
Landmarks
Katowice
Giszowiec (say "gee-SHOH-vyets") is a historic garden-city estate in Katowice, built in the early 1900s for coal miners and their families. Instead of tenement blocks, it has whitewashed cottages with steep red roofs, private gardens and t…