Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Technical monuments
Zabrze
Maciej Shaft in Zabrze (say MAH-chyay, ZAH-bzheh) is a preserved early-20th-century mine site in Upper Silesia, Poland's historic coal-mining heartland, and a stop on the region's Industrial Monuments Route. A green steel headframe with a…
Technical monuments
Ciechocinek
The graduation towers of Ciechocinek (say "che-ho-CHEE-nek") are three giant 19th-century timber structures in central Poland, together the largest of their kind in Europe. Brine trickles down walls of packed blackthorn twigs, evaporates i…
Technical monuments
Gdynia
About 300 m off the beach at Babie Doły in Gdynia, a concrete ruin rises from the waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk like a ship run aground. This is the torpedo building – a torpedo assembly and test hall built by the Germans during the Second…
Technical monuments
Nowa Ruda
Coal was mined in Nowa Ruda earlier than anywhere else in what is now Poland – the first records date from 1434. The last miners came to the surface in 1995, but the surviving Lech adit – the last part of the mine – has been open to touris…
Technical monuments
gmina Stronie Śląskie
On the road from Stronie Śląskie to Kletno, the route to the Bear Cave, stands an old lime kiln with a hexagonal base. The Łaskawy Kamień Lime Kiln in Stara Morawa is at once an industrial monument, a printmaking gallery, a Japanese garden…
Technical monuments
Bolesławiec
On the western edge of Bolesławiec the railway leaps across the Bóbr valley on 489 metres of stone arches. Built from pale sandstone and opened in 1846, the viaduct looks like a Roman aqueduct transplanted to Lower Silesia – and trains bet…
Technical monuments
Łagów
Anyone driving into Łagów from Żelechów passes under the arches of a brick viaduct, with the railway running high overhead. It is the most striking structure on the Międzyrzecz–Toporów line and, for walkers, one of the best viewpoints in t…
Technical monuments
Srebrna Góra
The two brick viaducts on the slopes of Srebrna Góra are the most striking relic of the Owl Mountains Railway (Eulengebirgsbahn) – a line that had to use a rack rail on its steepest section. The Żdanów viaduct (about 24 m high) and the Sre…
Technical monuments
Pyzdry
In 2021 the brick windmill in Pyzdry won Poland's national “Well-Kept Monument” competition in the industrial heritage category. Only a few years earlier this tower mill of 1903 on Wrocławska street was still in private hands. Today it bel…
Technical monuments
Kalety
On a small wooded island in the lower pond at Kalety-Zielona stands a wooden windmill with sails — the landmark of this forest district of Kalety. A footbridge once led to it and you could even spend the night inside. Today the mill has be…
Technical monuments
Krzywiń
On Bojanowskiego Street, on the way out of Krzywiń towards Gryżyna, stands a restored wooden post mill with dark cladding and lattice sails. It is one of two windmills that survive within the town limits. In 1793 there were three working h…
Technical monuments
Mokrsko
On a hill in Kocilew, a hamlet of Ożarów near Wieluń, stands a wooden post mill built in 1914 by the Kowalski family. Its sails sweep a circle about 17 metres across, with a surface of more than 50 m². After years as a ruin it was rebuilt…
Technical monuments
Rybitwy
This lone wooden post mill in the fields on the western shore of Lake Lednica was already at work in the 19th century, and today it belongs to the museum that looks after the cradle of the Piast state. Rybitwy Windmill has no ticket office…
Technical monuments
Moraczewo
Three wooden post mills on a gentle hill beside the Poznań–Gniezno road look as if they had always stood here – in fact, each one came from a different village. The Moraczewo Windmills are an outdoor site of the Museum of the First Piasts…
Technical monuments
Bydgoszcz
The Bydgoszcz Water Tower (Wieża ciśnień, roughly "VYEH-zha CHEESH-nyen") is a red-brick neo-Gothic tower from 1900 standing on the escarpment above the Old Town. Today it houses the Water Supply Museum and, at the top, a viewing gallery w…
Technical monuments
Giżycko
For 96 years this brick tower at ul. Warszawska 37 supplied Giżycko with water; today people drink coffee at the top with a view of Lake Niegocin and Boyen Fortress. The Gothic Revival structure of 1900 is regarded as the tallest building…
Technical monuments
Gołdap
The brick water tower on Paderewskiego Street is one of the highest points in Gołdap and one of the town's few historic buildings. It stands 46.5 m tall, was built in 1905, and since 2009 it has held a café and two viewing terraces instead…
Technical monuments
Frombork
The Water Tower in Frombork was built in 1571, 28 years after Copernicus died, although for years the idea of building it was credited to him. The brick tower housed a machine that lifted water more than 20 metres and sent it through pipes…
Technical monuments
Poręba
Between factory halls on ul. Fabryczna stands a stone tower with the date 1798 clearly visible below the eaves. It is a remnant of the furnace that started Poręba's industrial history: the tower was used to lift the charge into a blast fur…
Technical monuments
Rybnik
In the Głowacki shaft engine house stands a steam winding engine that ran without a break for 108 years, until 2008. Its younger sibling at the Kościuszko shaft still works and starts up for visitors every Sunday, while former mine engine…
Technical monuments
Rudy
Rudy lies almost exactly halfway along the former 51 km narrow-gauge line from Gliwice to Racibórz – which is why the largest station on the whole line was built here, with workshops, an engine shed and a track triangle for turning steam l…
Technical monuments
Karpacz
The Łomnica tumbles down from Śnieżka so steeply that in its upper course it drops an average of 72 metres for every kilometre – and in heavy rain it turns into a destructive torrent full of boulders and trees. The granite dam in Karpacz,…
Technical monuments
Międzygórze
For most of the year there is no lake behind this dam, just a meadow and a stream. The stone wall in the lower part of Międzygórze closes a dry flood-control reservoir that fills only during major floods. When it does, it is quite a sight…
Technical monuments
Niedzica
Between Niedzica Castle and the ruins of Czorsztyn Castle, the Dunajec river is held back by a 404-metre bank of earth and gravel – the highest earth dam in Poland with a clay sealing core. You can walk along its crest, and underneath it,…