Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Dubiecko
A yellow, centrally planned church with a dome on a tall drum stands by the main road through Dubiecko. This is the former Greek Catholic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, built in 1927, which after years as a warehouse has found…
Gardens
Warszawa
The Royal Garden of Light in Wilanów (Królewski Ogród Światła, "VEE-lah-noof") is a seasonal after-dark light show in the Baroque gardens of the Museum of King Jan III's Palace in Warsaw. From autumn until the end of winter, LED sculptures…
Museums
Warszawa
On the edge of the Vistula escarpment in Mokotów stands a white domed palace modelled on Palladio's Villa Rotonda. Królikarnia is now the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw, and around it lies…
Technical monuments
Krośnice
At weekends the steam locomotive Px48-1907, built in 1955 and once used on the Żuławy Narrow-Gauge Railway, puffs through the park in Krośnice. The Krośnice Narrow-Gauge Railway is one of the few working park railways in Poland. Its 750 mm…
Old towns & squares
Zakopane
Krupówki is the backbone of Zakopane: more than a kilometre of pedestrian street climbing steadily uphill from the junction with Nowotarska and Kościeliska streets to ul. Zamoyskiego and al. 3 Maja. Cars – and even bicycles – are banned. I…
Churches & monasteries
Nowa Słupia
Beneath the basilica of Święty Krzyż (Holy Cross), on the summit of Łysa Góra, mummified bodies of the monastery's former residents lie in open coffins. At the centre of the crypt rests a figure in a nobleman's żupan and cloak, with a mace…
Viewpoints
Wisła
On the slope of Kobyla, a few metres from a hiking trail, the hillside suddenly drops away and a rocky pulpit rises up with jagged, partly overhanging walls. Krzakoska Rock – also known as the Kobyla Rocks – is the best-known climbing crag…
Nature
Sudół
Krzemionki (pronounced ksheh-MYON-kee) is a Neolithic flint mine near Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski in central-southern Poland, where prehistoric miners dug thousands of shafts to extract a rare striped flint for axes. It is one of the best-pres…
Landmarks
Toruń
The Leaning Tower of Toruń (Krzywa Wieża, roughly "KSHI-vah VYEH-zhah") is a 14th-century tower in the medieval city walls facing the Vistula River, tilted almost one and a half meters off vertical. Alongside gingerbread and Copernicus, it…
Landmarks
Sopot
The Crooked House in Sopot (Krzywy Domek, say "KSHIH-vih DOH-mek") is a building that looks as if it is melting: wavy walls, warped windows and a roof like a fairy-tale hat. It stands on Sopot's famous pedestrian street, Bohaterów Monte Ca…
Monuments & mounds
Chałupki
On Zabełkowska Street in Rudyszwałd, set against the wall of a roadside building, stands a short, stocky sandstone cross. It bears no name and no date, yet it is one of the oldest monuments in the village: a stone trace of medieval law, un…
Viewpoints
Radzionków
On a hill of the Tarnowskie Góry Ridge, 357 m above sea level, lies a park that Radzionków owes to the interwar years and to a man who later became governor of the Katowice province – Jerzy Ziętek. Its name, Księża Góra, means "Priests' Hi…
Technical monuments
Łódź
Księży Młyn ("Priest's Mill") is the largest historic factory complex in Łódź from the second half of the 19th century: a 207-metre spinning mill, brick workers' houses, a school, a fire station, a hospital and a manufacturer's palace, all…
Nature
Żarki
Drive along regional road 792 from Żarki towards Jaworznik and you suddenly see where the Polish Jura ends. The limestone upland breaks off in a steep step, with the wide valley of the upper Warta River spread out below. This is the Jurass…
Museums
Kłóbka
In Kłóbka, nicknamed the Pearl of Kuyavia for its hills, woods and lakes, stands the manor house where Maria Wodzińska (later Orpiszewska) spent the last years of her life; she was the only official fiancée of Fryderyk Chopin. Around the m…
Other
Zakopane
Horse-drawn sleighs, flaming torches in the dark and, at the end of the route, a bonfire, grilled sausages and highland music. The kulig is one of Poland's oldest winter pastimes, and in and around Zakopane plenty of local operators run th…
Nature
Kalety
This woodland meadow in Kalety, between the Miotek district and the town centre on Paderewskiego Street, is officially the ecological site "Purple Moor-Grass Meadow in Kalety". Locals call it the iris meadow because in June it fills with S…
Nature
Podlesice
Before you head in among the white rocks of Góra Zborów, you can spend a few minutes seeing what the whole Jura is made of. The Lapidarium in Podlesice is an open-air display of the typical rocks of the Kraków-Wieluń Upland, from Jurassic…
Nature
Trzebnica
A short walk from the Basilica of St Hedwig, the Beech Forest begins – locals also call it Pustelnik, "the Hermit". Under tall beeches stand the chapels of an 18th-century Calvary, a brick forest church from 1886, a Lourdes grotto and the…
Nature
Warszawa
Kabacki Forest (Las Kabacki, roughly "lass kah-BAHTS-kee") is a protected nature reserve on the southern edge of Warsaw, covering more than 900 hectares of old mixed woodland right at the end of the city's M1 metro line. It is the easiest…
Nature
Olsztyn
From the High Gate in Olsztyn, a red-marked trail leads straight into a forest where it is easy to forget you are still in a city. Olsztyn City Forest covers 1,415.87 ha, entirely within the city limits, and Olsztyn describes it as the lar…
Nature
Katowice
The highest point in Katowice is not a tower block or a slag heap but the beech-covered Wanda Hill (Wzgórze Wandy, about 357 m above sea level). Its slopes hold the Las Murckowski nature reserve – a patch of mixed forest that comes closer…
Amusement parks
Ułęż
Instead of merry-go-rounds and plastic slides – wooden structures, pine cones under bare feet and a mud kitchen by a pond. Explorers' Forest (Las Odkrywców) in Ułęż (Ryki County) is a family adventure park laid out in 6 hectares of real wo…
Gardens
Człuchów
This wooded park on a former peninsula by the ruins of the Teutonic castle is named after a Prussian queen. Louise stopped in Człuchów in 1807 and was taken with the spot, and four years later the townspeople named it Louise's Hill. Today…