Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
Czernice
Jezioro Czarne ("Black Lake") is slowly ceasing to be a lake. Its dark, acidic water is being overgrown from the shores, and carnivorous plants and rare mosses grow on the floating mat of the bog. This process is protected by one of the ol…
Nature
Kamińsko
The Jezioro Pławno Nature Reserve protects two small forest lakes in the western part of Puszcza Zielonka forest north-east of Poznań – Pławno and Kociołek – together with the bogs and patches of woodland around them. There is no beach and…
Nature
Rewa
Between Rewa and Mechelinki, right on the Bay of Puck, stretches a belt of wet meadows, reed beds and low dunes. This is the Mechelińskie Łąki reserve – more than 113 hectares protected since 2000 as a refuge for water and marsh birds. In…
Nature
Poznań
Between the housing blocks of Piątkowo and the new estates of Naramowice lies the small Piątkowo Wood, and inside it one of the smallest nature reserves in Poznań. Żurawiniec covers just 1.67 ha and protects a peat bog in a glacial trough.…
Nature
Łopuchówko
Nine-leaved toothwort is a plant of mountain beech forests, usually found in the Carpathians and the Sudetes. Yet in Zielonka Forest, a short drive from Poznań, it grows at its northernmost site in Poland – and the only documented one in t…
Nature
Tarnowskie Góry
Segiet Nature Reserve (say "SEH-gyet") is a beech-forest reserve on the border of Bytom and Tarnowskie Góry in Upper Silesia, about 20 km north of Katowice. It covers the top of Srebrna Góra, literally "Silver Hill" (347 m), where centurie…
Nature
Ciężkowice
Local legend says a town once stood in the forest above the Biała river, and its inhabitants were turned to stone for their wicked ways. Instead of houses there are now sandstone rocks shaped like mushrooms, towers and pulpits, up to 14 me…
Nature
Uchorowo
Śnieżycowy Jar (roughly "shnyeh-ZHY-tso-vy yar"), the Snowflake Ravine Nature Reserve, is a small wooded gully about 15 miles north of Poznań, in western Poland, where thousands of spring snowflakes bloom each March. It is one of the few l…
Nature
Olsztyn
Just outside Olsztyn near Częstochowa, in full view of the castle hill, runs a chain of limestone hills hiding the deepest cave of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The Sokole Góry ("Falcon Hills") reserve protects beech woods, crags and more…
Nature
Rogalin
The Rogalin oaks (Rogalin: roh-GAH-leen) are Europe's largest cluster of ancient pedunculate oaks, growing beside the Warta River in the village of Rogalin, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Poznań in western Poland. Three giants named Lech,…
Nature
Łeba
The moving dunes of Słowiński National Park, near the Baltic resort of Łeba ("WEH-bah") in northern Poland, are the closest thing Europe has to a desert by the sea. Walls of pale sand up to about 40 meters high creep inland every year, bur…
Nature
Mstów
According to local legend, this limestone rock above the Warta River is a pair of lovers turned to stone by the girl's mother. Skała Miłości, the "Rock of Love" in Mstów, a dozen or so kilometres from Częstochowa, is about 15 m high and is…
Nature
Szczytna
On the south-eastern edge of the Table Mountains plateau, between Batorów and the Radków Rocks, dozens of sandstone outcrops shaped like mushrooms, clubs, towers and gateways stand in spruce forest. The Rock Mushrooms (Skalne Grzyby, Germa…
Nature
Podzamcze
Two limestone rocks by the walls of Ogrodzieniec Castle share a common base, which is why they are called the Two Sisters – Sfinks (Sphinx) and Lalka (Doll), with a third, Niedźwiedź (Bear), standing next to them. The Podzamcze Rock Town i…
Nature
Zawiercie
White limestone outcrops rising out of the woods and fields are the signature of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland – and the reason the whole region is simply called the Jura. The rock formed on the floor of a shallow sea in the Late Jurassic,…
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…
Nature
Busko-Zdrój
On the edge of Wełecz Forest, a few kilometres from Busko-Zdrój, grows a Scots pine that looks as if it has walked out of the woods on stilts. Its roots lift the trunk about 3 metres off the ground, and several people can stand beneath the…
Nature
gmina Lubsza
The Oder has not always flowed where it does today. The traces of its old bends are oxbow lakes – crescent-shaped ponds on the valley floor, which the managers of Stobrawa Landscape Park count among its most valuable natural sites. On thei…
Nature
Ogrodzieniec
On top of Straszykowa Góra (485 m), white limestone towers rise above the pine canopy, bearing names given by climbers: Felin, Fircyk, Skrzynia, Weselna, Dupinek, Kominowa and Skała pod Słupem. These are the Straszykowe Rocks – one of the…
Nature
Pobiedziska
A short drive from Poznań you can paddle through five lakes, a narrow stream and belts of reeds without meeting a single weir. The Puszcza Zielonka kayak trail is 11.3 km long and links Pobiedziska with Tuczno. The current is so gentle tha…
Nature
Pińczów
The Nida is the longest river in the Świętokrzyskie region and one of the gentlest kayak routes in Poland. The waymarked trail from Brzegi to Nowy Korczyn is 92.7 km long and runs through the Ponidzie area past the castle in Sobków, Pińczó…
Nature
Susiec
Along a stretch of about 400 metres, the Tanew river tumbles over 24 rock steps. The water pours over them in low, wide cascades, and you hear the rushing long before you see the river – hence the local name szumy (from the Polish word for…
Nature
Mieleszyn
In the middle of the fields at Sokolniki near Gniezno lies a boulder that, according to local legend, was meant to crush a church under construction. The Mieleszyn municipality calls it the area's greatest curiosity: Tarcza Olbrzyma – the…
Nature
Chorzów
A few minutes from the A4 motorway, where Chorzów, Katowice and Ruda Śląska meet, grows a forest that looks as if Upper Silesia's industry passed it by. Uroczysko Buczyna is 65 hectares of old beech woodland with hundreds of mighty trees,…