Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Old towns & squares
Krościenko nad Dunajcem
The market square in Krościenko nad Dunajcem measures about 120 by 70 metres – larger than the Old Town Market Square in Warsaw. It was laid out when the town was founded in 1348 and still keeps its medieval plan: a town hall in the middle…
Old towns & squares
Lanckorona
The market square in Lanckorona slopes so steeply that it is considered the steepest on the Amber Route, with a gradient of about 9.5%. It is lined with wooden, shingle-roofed houses with deep arcades and small windows, rebuilt after a gre…
Old towns & squares
Maków Podhalański
On the rim of a fountain sits a bronze woman in folk dress, bent over her embroidery, while water spurts from three stone poppy heads behind her. It sums up what Maków Podhalański is known for: white embroidery and the poppy in its coat of…
Old towns & squares
Nowy Sącz
The Main Market Square in Nowy Sącz (Rynek, roughly "NO-vih SONCH") is the historic heart of this southern Polish city and one of the largest market squares in the country – second only to Kraków's in the Małopolska region. A grand, freshl…
Old towns & squares
Nowy Targ
Nowy Targ Market Square is a 138 × 110 m rectangle – about 1.5 ha – a square built to suit a town founded for trade. It was laid out in 1346, when the town received its charter, and at its centre stands a 19th-century town hall with a cloc…
Old towns & squares
Olkusz
The Market Square in Olkusz (say "OL-koosh") is the heart of Poland's old "Silver Town," a medieval silver and lead mining center about 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Kraków. Since a makeover completed in 2013, the square has been car-free,…
Old towns & squares
Oświęcim
Oświęcim Market Square (Rynek Główny; the town's name is pronounced roughly "osh-VYEN-cheem") is the heart of a medieval Polish town whose German name, Auschwitz, became synonymous with the Holocaust. Most visitors come only for the Memori…
Old towns & squares
Piwniczna-Zdrój
When fire swept through Piwniczna in 1876, the only thing to survive from the well on the market square was the statue of St Florian, patron saint of firefighters, which fell into the water. Today it stands on the rebuilt cistern in the mi…
Old towns & squares
Skała
In the middle of the square stands an unusual monument: a bronze group – a duke, nuns, a mounted retinue – frozen at the moment the town was born. Skała is one of the oldest towns in Lesser Poland, and its market square with radiating stre…
Old towns & squares
Stary Sącz
The market square of Stary Sącz looks just as you would picture a small Galician town: low, mostly 19th-century houses, a well beneath lime trees, and paving of Dunajec river cobbles that took 11 years to lay. It is the centre of one of Po…
Old towns & squares
Tarnów
Tarnów Market Square (Tarnów is pronounced roughly "TAR-noof") is the heart of a city that Poles like to call the "pearl of the Renaissance." Laid out in 1330, the square is lined with arcaded and gabled townhouses and centered on a striki…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The Our Lady of Fatima Sanctuary at Krzeptówki (kshep-TOOF-kee) in Zakopane is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Tatra region and a church closely tied to Pope John Paul II. Local highlanders built it as a thank-offering af…
Nature
Skała
Where road 773 meets the road to Ojców, limestone crags rise from the left side of the Prądnik valley. Seen from the opposite bank of the stream, one of them looks like a walking man – hence its name, Skamieniały Wędrowiec, the Petrified W…
Old towns & squares
Kraków
Kraków Old Town (Stare Miasto) is the medieval core of Poland's former royal capital: a compact grid of streets, churches and university colleges wrapped in a ring of parkland, centered on one of the largest market squares in Europe. Toget…
Historic sites
Tarnów
The Old Cemetery in Tarnów (Stary Cmentarz, once called the Zabłocie Cemetery) is one of the oldest surviving cemeteries in Poland — older than Warsaw's famous Powązki. Spread over less than four hectares in the south of this Renaissance t…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The Old Church in Zakopane (Stary Kościół, pronounced roughly "STAH-ri KOSH-choow"), officially the Church of Our Lady of Częstochowa, is the oldest parish church in Poland's best-known mountain resort. This small wooden church on Kościeli…
Lakes
Klucze
At the northern foot of Rudnica hill in Klucze lie two small ponds: Staw Zielony (Green Pond) and Staw Czerwony (Red Pond). The Małopolska regional tourism portal lists them among the most charming spots in the Klucze municipality. Greenis…
Viewpoints
Ochotnica Górna
On the broad summit meadow of Magurki (1,108 m) in the Gorce Mountains stands a wooden tower from which, in clear weather, you can see not only the Tatras but also the Greater Fatra range in Slovakia. It was built in 2015, and thanks to it…
Viewpoints
Rabka-Zdrój
A wooden observation tower stands on the summit of Królewska Góra (588 m), also known as Polczakówka, on the northern edge of the spa town of Rabka-Zdrój. The hill rises only about 120 m above the Raba valley, so the walk up makes an easy…
Castles
Zakliczyn
Melsztyn Castle (say "MEL-shtin") is a medieval hilltop ruin above a gorge of the Dunajec River in southern Poland, about 30 km southwest of Tarnów and some 80 km by road east of Kraków. Once the seat of the powerful Leliwa family, it lay…
Lakes
Wadowice
On the Skawa river, a few kilometres from Wadowice, stands a dam that took longer to build than many people's entire careers. The first plans were drawn up in the 1950s, construction began in 1986, and the basin was only properly filled ar…
Nature
Ojców
The heart at the bottom of the basin is not a work of nature – it was carved into the stone, and the romantic name was given to the spring by local guides. The Spring of Love (Źródło Miłości) in the Prądnik Valley is a karst spring that de…