Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Historic sites
Międzyzdroje
In Lubin on Wolin Island, about 7 km from Międzyzdroje, an early medieval hillfort sits on the highest cliff above the Szczecin Lagoon. From wooden terraces more than 50 m above sea level you can see the archipelago of 44 islands in the Św…
Viewpoints
Jerzmanowice
Maps still label it "Hill 502", although newer surveys from the early 1990s give its height as about 513 m. Skała 502 in Jerzmanowice, also called Grodzisko, is the highest point of the Olkusz Upland and the second highest summit of the wh…
Historic sites
Olkusz
Less than 3 km west of Olkusz town centre lie the remains of a medieval stronghold: a deep moat, two rings of earthen ramparts and the ruins of the Gothic Church of St John the Baptist. This is where the town's story begins – before Olkusz…
Historic sites
Sobótka
The Będkowice Archaeological Reserve lies at the foot of Mount Ślęża, by the road from Strzegomiany to Będkowice in the Sobótka municipality. It protects an early medieval settlement complex of the Ślężanie tribe: a hillfort from the 8th–1…
Historic sites
Sopot
The Grodzisko in Sopot (say "gro-JEES-ko", meaning "hillfort") is the oldest historic site in this Baltic spa town – the remains of an early medieval Slavic stronghold on a wooded hill about 400 m from the sea. Today it is an open-air arch…
Historic sites
Wiślica
The Wiślica hillfort (in Polish "grodzisko", roughly "gro-JEES-ko"), also called the hillfort "in the meadows", is an early medieval archaeological site on a low island ringed by the Nida River and its old channels, a few hundred meters so…
Mountains & peaks
Żywiec
The steel cross on the bare summit of Średni Grojec can be seen from many parts of Żywiec and has become one of the town's symbols. Fewer people know that the higher, wooded top of the same hill once held a castle of robber knights, and la…
Nature
Ślemień
"There is a great rock with water running over it, and beneath it a hole into which a hundred head of cattle could be driven" – this is how Andrzej Komoniecki, the mayor of Żywiec, described the spot in 1704 in his chronicle Dziejopis Żywi…
Nature
Złoty Potok
In 1857 Zygmunt Krasiński, one of Poland's great Romantic poets, came across a small cave in the limestone rocks above the Wiercica valley while walking near Złoty Potok. He described it and dug out the first bones of prehistoric animals h…
Churches & monasteries
Strawczyn
On the summit of Perzowa Góra, massive blocks of red sandstone have split apart to form a cleft, and inside it is a chapel dedicated to St Rosalia – the saint invoked against plague. During the great epidemics of the 19th century, numerous…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
Gubałówka is a long, largely treeless ridge above Zakopane with a view of the entire Polish Tatras and, in good weather, the Pieniny, Gorce and Żywiec Beskids as well. Since 1938 visitors have ridden up on a funicular built in just 168 day…
Other
Tarnowskie Góry
Gwarki (pronounced "GVAR-kee") is the annual town festival of Tarnowskie Góry ("tar-NOF-skyeh GOO-rih"), a former silver- and lead-mining town in Upper Silesia, southern Poland. Held every September since 1957, it celebrates the town's min…
Mountains & peaks
Złatna
Despite its name, this wide clearing has nothing to do with "hala" in the botanical sense of an alpine zone — "hala" is the local word for a mountain pasture, and this one was named after an owner called Biegun. Hala Bieguńska, one of the…
Mountains & peaks
Żabnica
Hala Boracza is a grassy saddle at around 860 m in the Żywiec Beskids, above the villages of Żabnica and Milówka – and on it stands a PTTK mountain hut with a history unlike any other in these mountains. It was built by the Jewish sports c…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
Hala Gąsienicowa (roughly "HA-la gon-sheh-nee-TSO-va") is a wide mountain meadow in the Gąsienicowa Valley of Poland's High Tatras and one of the most popular hikes from Zakopane. From the trailhead at Kuźnice it takes a little over two ho…
Mountains & peaks
Brenna
In 1913, 211 sheep and 12 cows grazed at the Kotarz shepherd's hut above Brenna – at the time one of the largest in the Silesian Beskids. What the shepherds left behind is Hala Jaworowa, also known as Polana Kotarska: a broad mountain mead…
Mountains & peaks
Korbielów
Hala Miziowa is a wide, gently sloping meadow on the northern side of Pilsko, at about 1,230–1,310 m. A large PTTK mountain hut stands on it, and from the front you look out over the ridges of the Żywiec Beskids and the outline of Babia Gó…
Technical monuments
Wrocław
Wrocław Market Hall (Hala Targowa, say "HAH-lah tar-GOH-vah") is a working food market that has been trading since 1908 – and a landmark of early concrete engineering. Behind its red-brick facade, giant reinforced-concrete arches soar over…
Nature
Tarnowskie Góry
The Friedrich Mine washing tip in Tarnowskie Góry (Hałda popłuczkowa, pronounced roughly "TAR-nov-skyeh GOO-ri") is a flat-topped, orange mound of mining waste that has been part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017. It is the leftov…
Museums
Władysławowo
Hallerówka is a wooden villa from 1924 at ul. Morska 6 in Władysławowo, where General Józef Haller – commander of the Blue Army and hero of Poland's symbolic Wedding to the Sea in 1920 – spent his summer holidays. Since 2013 it has been a…
Museums
Gdańsk
Hevelianum (pronounced "heh-veh-LYAH-noom") is a hands-on science center in Gdańsk, set inside 19th-century fort buildings on Gradowa Hill (Góra Gradowa), just a short walk from the main train station. With interactive exhibitions on energ…
Other
Nowy Zamek
Hubertówka (hoo-ber-TOOF-kah) in Nowy Zamek, near the town of Milicz in Lower Silesia, is a family-run restaurant serving game and freshwater fish, right beside the Milicz Fish Ponds in the Barycz Valley. Open since 1982, it is known for M…
Other
Świerklaniec
The Cavalry Hubertus in Świerklaniec is an autumn festival of foresters, hunters and riders held in the historic park of the former Donnersmarck residence. In 2024 it reached its 26th edition, organised by the municipality together with th…
Technical monuments
Piechowice
At the Julia glassworks in Piechowice, crystal is still made by hand: glassmakers blow and shape molten glass at the furnaces, and cutters decorate the finished pieces. Visitors walk through the production hall with a guide and watch the w…