Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
Ojców
A lone, slender limestone spire rises from a meadow at the mouth of the Wrześnik ravine, and in autumn it looks like a burning torch – it is wrapped in Virginia creeper whose leaves turn an intense red. Along with Hercules' Club and the Kr…
Technical monuments
Tarnowskie Góry
Industriada (pronounced "in-doos-tree-AH-dah") is an annual industrial heritage festival in Poland's Silesian Voivodeship, the region around Katowice. Each June, dozens of historic coal and silver mines, ironworks, breweries, railway sites…
Museums
Ząbkowice Śląskie
The oldest surviving house in Ząbkowice Śląskie, the so-called Kauffung Manor at 1 Krzywa Street, holds a regional museum with eighteen rooms of mementoes of former residents. The main draw, though, is in the cellars: Frankenstein's Labora…
Museums
Siewierz
South of the parish church in Siewierz, at 5 Kościuszki Street, stands a neat manor house with a mansard roof and dormers – the Old Commune Building. Since 2005 it has housed the Chamber of Tradition and Old Culture, a small museum about t…
Other
Gdańsk
St. Dominic's Fair in Gdańsk (Jarmark św. Dominika) is Poland's largest open-air trade and cultural festival: every summer, for more than three weeks, the streets of Gdańsk's historic Main Town fill with stalls, stages and food stands. Wit…
Other
Katowice
Jarmark na Nikiszu is a December craft market on Plac Wyzwolenia in Nikiszowiec, a historic mining estate in Katowice. It has been held since 2008 on the first weekend after Barbórka, the miners' feast of St Barbara, and draws on that trad…
Other
Katowice
The Katowice Christmas Market (Jarmark Bożonarodzeniowy, roughly "YAR-mark bo-zho-na-ro-dze-NYO-vih") transforms the Main Square of Katowice, the capital of Poland's Silesia region, into a glowing winter village of wooden stalls, Ferris wh…
Other
Żarki
Żarki in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland has one of the liveliest markets in the region. The town hall calls it an "open-air supermarket": every Saturday up to 10,000 customers come here, choosing from around 500 stalls on a 1.5-hectare squa…
Nature
gmina Kroczyce
In 1942 the face of a German quarry cut the cave in two – its middle section was exposed and destroyed, and its two entrances became four. Even so, Głęboka Cave ("Deep Cave") in Góra Zborów near Podlesice is today the only cave in the nort…
Caves
Wolbrom
Among the fields outside the village of Strzegowa rises a wooded limestone rock, and two large openings gape in its northern face. Jasna Cave (the name means "bright cave") gets its name from the fact that almost all of it is lit by daylig…
Caves
Ojców
King Łokietek's Cave (Jaskinia Łokietka, roughly "yahs-KEEN-yah wo-KYET-kah") is the largest known cave in Ojców National Park, a small and beautiful protected area of limestone valleys about 25 km north of Kraków. A guided walk leads thro…
Nature
Wierzchowie
In the 19th century the archaeologist Jan Zawisza dug so many mammoth bones out of this cave that he named it Mamutowa – Mammoth Cave. A huge arched opening in the Kluczwoda Valley near Wierzchowie leads into one of Poland's most important…
Caves
Kletno
Bear Cave in Kletno (Polish: Jaskinia Niedźwiedzia, roughly "yahs-KEE-nyah nyed-ZHVYEH-dzyah") is the longest cave in the Sudetes and one of the most beautiful show caves in Poland. Hidden in the Śnieżnik Massif near the Czech border, it i…
Nature
Siedlec
In the woods beside the road from Żarki to Janów stands a limestone crag that cavers compare to a block of Swiss cheese. Ostrężnicka Cave runs right through it, with a network of passages about 90–98 m long and six openings, while traces o…
Nature
Brenna
In beech woodland on the southern slope of Trzy Kopce, at about 1,000 m, a 4.3 m shaft opens in a small hollow. Below it runs a maze of fissures and chambers about 1,244 m long – the Trzy Kopce Cave, also known as Klimczok's Grotto, is one…
Nature
Olsztyn
Behind a low opening in a limestone rock, right beside the red Eagles' Nests Trail, lies a chamber of about 10 × 8 m filled with thick flowstone columns up to 1.5 m tall. According to cavers' descriptions, no other cave in the Polish Jura…
Caves
Wierzchowie
Wierzchowska Górna Cave (say "vyeh-HOV-skah GOOR-nah") in the village of Wierzchowie is Poland's longest show cave, about 15 km (9 miles) northwest of Kraków in the Kraków Valleys Landscape Park. A lit, guided route of about 700 m (2,300 f…
Nature
Rzyki
In 1704 the Żywiec mayor and chronicler Andrzej Komoniecki wrote that under a great rock above the village of Las there was a hole so spacious that a hundred head of cattle could be driven into it. Today it is Komoniecki Cave – the most ac…
Nature
Klucze
Beneath the forests of the Klucze municipality, a few kilometres from the Błędów Desert, lie tens of metres of vertical fissures, shafts and chambers. One cave was found when cavers noticed snow melting in winter above a crack breathing ou…
Gardens
Szczecin
Jasne Błonia (roughly "YAS-neh BWOH-nya", meaning "Bright Meadows") and Kasprowicz Park form Szczecin's best-loved green space: a broad lawn lined with rows of plane trees that flows into a large park around Lake Rusałka. Jasne Błonia is h…
Lakes
Biskupin
Without this lake there would be no Biskupin. The water first allowed a fortified settlement to be built on a marshy island, then for centuries covered its wooden remains, and in 1933 – when the level dropped – it revealed timber posts tha…
Lakes
Charzykowy
Lake Charzykowskie covers more than 13 km², is over 30 metres deep, and its north-eastern shore touches the boundary of Bory Tucholskie National Park. This is where Polish inland sailing began: in 1922 the Chojnice Sailing Club was founded…
Lakes
Łagów
Looking at the green surface from a jetty in Łagów, it is hard to believe that there are almost 59 metres of water below. Ciecz, also called Lake Trześniowskie, is the deepest lake in the Lubusz Lakeland and one of the deepest in Poland. I…
Lakes
Czchów
Beyond Czchów the Dunajec widens into a long, narrow lake between steep wooded slopes. On a rock above the water stands the rebuilt Tropsztyn Castle, and at the end of the lake the concrete Czchów Dam, with a power station hidden in its bo…