Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
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…
Technical monuments
Starachowice
A blast furnace from 1899, blown out in 1968, still towers over Starachowice, preserved together with its rail tracks, charging tower and machinery. Around it, on 8 hectares of the former ironworks, is the Jan Pazdur Museum of Nature and T…
Technical monuments
Gryfice
The Seaside Narrow Gauge Railway (Nadmorska Kolej Wąskotorowa) in Gryfice is one of Poland's most popular heritage railways. Its 1,000 mm gauge trains run from the town of Gryfice through the Baltic resorts of Trzęsacz, Rewal and Niechorze…
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,…
Technical monuments
Żyrardów
The 19th-century factory town of Żyrardów (say "zhih-RAR-doof") is a complete industrial settlement built around a linen mill just southwest of Warsaw. Red-brick workers' houses, schools, a hospital, a nursery, a social club, churches and…
Technical monuments
Gniezno
The Gniezno Roundhouse (Parowozownia Gniezno) is a historic steam locomotive depot next to the main railroad station in Gniezno, western Poland, and one of the largest surviving depot complexes in Europe. Two vast fan-shaped engine sheds,…
Technical monuments
Kąty
The Kąty inclined plane is one of five on the Elbląg Canal where boats, instead of using locks, travel on rails – riding on cradle cars over a grassy ridge. The track at Kąty is 450 m long, and boats climb or descend around 18 m here. The…
Technical monuments
Oleśnica
The Oleśnica incline (oh-leh-SHNEE-tsah) is one of five "ship railways" on the Elbląg Canal in northern Poland, where boats cross a hill on rail carriages and seem to sail across a meadow. The drop here is about 24 m, the largest of the fi…
Technical monuments
Złoty Potok
In 1881 in Złoty Potok, rainbow trout eggs brought from California were ceremonially fertilised in front of invited guests, as if opening an important institution. That was the start of Count Edward Raczyński's trout farm, at the time the…
Technical monuments
Świdnica
On the main avenue of General Władysław Sikorski Park in Świdnica stands a red triplane that is hard to walk past. It is a replica of the Fokker Dr.I, the aircraft forever linked with Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron", who spent part…
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…
Technical monuments
Ruciane-Nida
The Guzianka Lock (say "goo-ZHAN-ka") in Ruciane-Nida is a pair of chamber locks linking Lake Bełdany with the small Lake Guzianka Mała – the gateway from the main Great Masurian Lakes waterway to Ruciane-Nida and Lake Nidzkie in northeast…
Technical monuments
Augustów
On 9 June 1999 Pope John Paul II sailed through Przewięź Lock aboard the boat "Serwy" on his way from Augustów to Studzieniczna. This unassuming, hand-operated lock from 1826–1827 links Lake Białe Augustowskie with Lake Studzieniczne and s…
Technical monuments
Augustów
Swoboda Lock lies deep in the Augustów Forest, on a stretch of the Augustów Canal less than a kilometre long that links Lake Studzieniczne with Lake Ślepe. Built in 1826–1827, it worked for decades with steel gates and a concrete bridge –…
Technical monuments
Środa Wielkopolska
The Środa County Railway (Średzka Kolej Powiatowa; Środa is pronounced "SHROH-dah") is a heritage narrow-gauge line running about 9 miles between Środa Wielkopolska and Zaniemyśl, roughly 22 miles southeast of Poznań in western Poland. On…
Technical monuments
Poznań
Stary Browar ("STAH-ri BRO-var," the Old Brewery) in Poznań is a shopping, arts and business center at Półwiejska 42, built inside the red-brick halls of the 19th-century Hugger brewery. Its "50:50" concept, half business and half art, tur…
Technical monuments
Świnoujście
Stawa Młyny (roughly "STAH-vah MWIH-nih", "the Mills beacon") is a white, 10-meter navigation mark shaped like a windmill at the tip of the western breakwater in Świnoujście, where the Świna River meets the Baltic Sea. It is the town's bes…
Technical monuments
Katowice
On the site of the Katowice colliery, closed in 1999, three buildings went up in 2011–2015 that changed the city's image: the new Silesian Museum, the home of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) and the International Congr…
Technical monuments
Zabrze
A UNESCO-listed silver mine, underground adits in Zabrze, brewery museums in Tychy and Żywiec, the Gliwice radio station and workers' estates where people still live. The Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Voivodeship (Szlak Zabytk…
Technical monuments
Święta Katarzyna
Long before industrial Silesia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth smelted its iron along the rivers of the northern Kielce region. The industrial heritage trail of Świętokrzyskie Province links the remains of this Old Polish Industrial Re…
Technical monuments
Zabrze
Queen Louise Adit (Sztolnia Królowa Luiza, roughly "SHTOL-nyah kroo-LOH-vah loo-EE-zah") in Zabrze is the underground heart of Poland's Coal Mining Museum: more than two centuries of mine workings, giant machines shown in motion and, best…
Technical monuments
Złoty Stok
In the Ochre Adit (Sztolnia Ochrowa) the walls are the colour of rust, mustard and orange. This is natural ochre – a pigment formed from iron compounds, the same one used for centuries in paints and cosmetics. The passage is about 130 metr…
Technical monuments
Walim
In the hillside above the village of Rzeczka, right by regional road 383, run rock-cut tunnels with a total length of about 500 m. This is the "Rzeczka" complex, one of seven underground sections of Project Riese ("Giant"), which Nazi Germ…
Technical monuments
Kowary
Sztolnie Kowary (SHTOL-nyeh ko-VAH-rih, "the Kowary Adits") is an underground tour through the former Liczyrzepa uranium mine in Kowary, a small town at the foot of Poland's Giant Mountains. On a one-hour guided walk you follow tunnels whe…