Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
Ojców
On a summer midday the surface of a white rock on the south-facing side of the Prądnik Valley can heat up to 60°C, while a few dozen metres away, in the shady forest on the north-facing slope, the thermometer reads 22°C. That contrast is t…
Nature
Poznań
Where clay was dug for almost a century to make bricks for a growing Poznań, reeds now reflect in still water and terns circle above the ponds. Szachty – or simply Glinianki, "the clay pits" – are around 40 ponds in the Junikowo Stream val…
Nature
Tykocin
It all started with a hurricane. In 1991 a storm snapped the trees around the old Pentowo estate on the edge of Tykocin, and white storks quickly moved onto the jagged trunks. Today more than 30 pairs nest here, on poles, roofs, trees and…
Nature
Tylicz
Tylicz sits on deposits of naturally carbonated mineral water, and you can taste several springs for free, straight from the pipe. The best known is Bradowiec, called the Spring of Love – a wooden gazebo by a stream on the road to Powroźni…
Nature
Gołuchów
In the woods next to the Gołuchów arboretum live European bison, Polish konik horses, fallow deer and wild boar – on more than 20 ha of fenced land, part of which is a meadow used as bison pasture. The Animal Display Enclosure has been her…
Nature
Brzegi
Włosienica is a small clearing on the floor of the Rybi Potok Valley at around 1,315 m above sea level, right beside the Oswald Balzer Road. For hikers heading to Morskie Oko it is the last stop before the lake: only about 1.5 km of walkin…
Nature
Poraj
Bird Island came about by chance: when the Warta river was dammed in 1978 and Poraj Reservoir was filled, a raised section of an old local road from Kuźnica Stara to Masłońskie was left above the water. Today it is a natural bird sanctuary…
Nature
Siedlec
Everyone knows the Błędów Desert, but a few kilometres from Złoty Potok the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland has a second, much smaller "desert". The Siedlec Desert covers about 25 ha of open sand near the village of Siedlec, with dunes up to 30…
Nature
Augustów
The Augustów Primeval Forest is one of the largest continuous forests in Poland: more than 114,000 hectares on the Polish side of the border and about 160,000 including the parts in Lithuania and Belarus. Lakes, peat bogs and rivers lie hi…
Nature
Radków
On some of the sandstone towers of the Radków Rocks you can still see inscriptions carved by the Silesian Forestry Society in the first half of the 20th century — traces of the time when these cliffs bore the German name Wünschelburger Leh…
Nature
gmina Kosakowo
The Beka Nature Reserve (Rezerwat Beka, roughly "BEH-kah") protects rare coastal salt meadows on Puck Bay, at the old mouth of the Reda River, about 15 km (9 miles) north of Gdynia. Its caretakers at OTOP, the Polish BirdLife partner, call…
Nature
Jaworki
The Biała Woda valley in Jaworki looks today like a wild, meadow-filled corner of the Little Pieniny mountains, yet until 1947 a Rusyn village stood here. After its people were deported in Operation Vistula – the forced resettlement of Ukr…
Nature
Giżycko
In the heart of the Borecka Forest, between Giżycko and Olecko, lies the Borki reserve – the central and best-preserved part of one of the most valuable forests of the Masurian Lake District. It is a realm of oak–hornbeam–lime woodland and…
Nature
Jaworzno
The water in the Żabnik Valley is so clear that from the boardwalk you can see the sand on the bottom of the ponds. It comes from karst springs that rise in the Ciężkowice district on the eastern edge of Jaworzno and feed the Żabnik stream…
Nature
Kielce
Kadzielnia (pronounced "kah-JEL-nyah") in Kielce is a former limestone quarry right inside the city, now a geological nature reserve with dramatic rock walls, viewpoints, an underground cave route, a large open-air amphitheater and a zip l…
Nature
Lubawka
The Kruczy Kamień reserve protects the summit of Krucza Skała (681 m) and its southern slope, which drops in a cliff several dozen metres high into the Krucza Valley. It lies about 2.5 km south of the centre of Lubawka, in the Krucze Mount…
Nature
Racibórz
Eight ponds, dykes lined with century-old oaks and limes, and more than half of all bird species found in Poland. The Łężczok reserve on the edge of Racibórz and the Nędza district is a former Cistercian fish farm that since 1957 has belon…
Nature
Mikołajki
Lake Łuknajno (say "wook-NIGH-no"), about 5 km (3 miles) east of Mikołajki in Poland's Masurian Lake District, is a shallow, reed-fringed lake protected for its birds – above all the mute swan. It was the first site in Poland listed under…
Nature
Siedlec
Ostrężnik Nature Reserve covers just 4.1 ha, yet it holds a limestone rock riddled like Swiss cheese, the ruins of a mysterious 14th-century fortress and a spring that flows only when it pleases. It was created in 1960 to protect a patch o…
Nature
Złoty Potok
In Złoty Potok the Wiercica river is born in a beech forest among limestone rocks – one of them looks like a gateway, another is a cleft known as the Devil's Bridges. The Parkowe reserve has protected this corner of the Kraków-Częstochowa…
Nature
Rabsztyn
On 28 June 1947, despite an early and warm spring, the speleologist Kazimierz Kowalski found plenty of ice at the bottom of a rock shaft in Cisowa Skała – that is how Omszała Studnia (Mossy Well), one of the larger caves of today's Pazurek…
Nature
Czarnorzeki
On a wooded ridge between Krosno and Rzeszów, sandstone pillars rise out of the forest, in places more than 20 metres high. Local legend says they are enchanted spinners – girls turned to stone for spinning flax on a holy day ("prządki" me…
Nature
Dubiecko
About 2.5 km from Dubiecko, among the fields and woods of the foothills, lies a raised bog where the insect-eating round-leaved sundew grows and rare garganeys can be seen. The Broduszurki reserve has protected it since 1996, and a nature…
Nature
Susiec
The Sopot river, usually calm and sandy, suddenly picks up speed at Czartowe Pole. It cuts into the edge zone of the Roztocze hills, jumps over irregular, jagged rock steps and flows like a mountain stream. Above the gorge, among fir trees…