Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Pińczów
The Old Synagogue in Pińczów is a stone synagogue built in 1594–1609, one of the oldest surviving Jewish houses of prayer in Poland and the only well-preserved trace of the once large Jewish community of the Ponidzie region. It stands on K…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Szydłów
From the outside it looks like a small fortress: stone walls about 2 metres thick, heavy buttresses and an attic parapet resembling battlements. Szydłów Synagogue, built in the 16th century within the town walls, is the oldest surviving sy…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Siedlęcin
The Ducal Tower in Siedlęcin (say "shed-WEN-cheen") is a 14th-century residential tower on the Bóbr River, a few kilometers northwest of Jelenia Góra in Lower Silesia. It is among the largest medieval tower houses in Central Europe, but it…
Hidden gemCastles
Janowiec
Janowiec Castle (say "yah-NOH-vyets") is a Renaissance magnate residence perched on a cliff above the Vistula River, directly across from the popular little town of Kazimierz Dolny in eastern Poland. Part ruin, part carefully rebuilt museu…
Hidden gemCastles
Stary Wiśnicz
Wiśnicz Castle (say "VEESH-neech") is a Baroque hilltop residence of the powerful Lubomirski family, ringed by star-shaped bastion fortifications, near the town of Nowy Wiśnicz about 50 km southeast of Kraków. Run by the Museum of the Wiśn…
Hidden gemCastles
Racibórz
Piast Castle in Racibórz was the seat of the dukes of Racibórz and Opole-Racibórz and is one of the oldest castles in Upper Silesia, standing on the Oder right next to the old town. After a thorough restoration it houses a museum with exhi…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Bochnia
The wall paintings in St Kinga's Chapel were designed by Jan Matejko, Poland's great history painter, and the rebuilding of the church after the fire of 1655 was funded by King John Casimir in this salt-mining town. The Basilica of St Nich…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Piekary Śląskie
In 1680 Emperor Leopold I asked for the image of Our Lady of Piekary to be brought to plague-stricken Prague, where it was carried in procession through the streets. Three years later King John III Sobieski prayed before it on his way to t…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Stargard
Locals often call it the cathedral, although it has always been a parish church. The Collegiate Church of St Mary, Queen of the World, in Stargard is one of the most important Gothic churches on the Baltic: it is 77.5 m long, its nave is m…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Złoty Stok
In the 16th century the mines of Złoty Stok supplied, according to the site's operator, as much as 8 per cent of Europe's gold, and in total some 16 tonnes of pure gold were extracted here. Later the ore was used mainly to produce arsenic.…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Brzeg
The nave here rises 30 metres, one of the tallest in Silesia, and St Nicholas' is counted among the largest Gothic churches in the region. It was the burghers' parish church of Brzeg, served Lutherans for four centuries, burned out in 1945…
Museums
Sandomierz
The Diocesan Museum in Sandomierz is housed in Długosz House, a late Gothic building from 1476 funded by the chronicler Jan Długosz right next to the cathedral. The star of the collection is "Madonna and Child with St Catherine of Alexandr…
Hidden gemMuseums
Łódź
The Museum of the City of Łódź (until 2009 the Museum of the History of the City of Łódź) occupies the palace of Izrael Poznański, one of Łódź's wealthiest textile magnates. The residence on ul. Ogrodowa, completed in 1903, is itself the s…
Hidden gemMuseums
Jaworzyna Śląska
If you lined up this museum's entire rolling stock in a single row, it would fill about two kilometres of track. The Railway Museum of Silesia (Muzeum Kolejnictwa na Śląsku) in Jaworzyna Śląska occupies a fan-shaped engine shed from 1907 a…
Hidden gemPalaces
Kraków
Krzysztofory Palace, on the corner of the Main Market Square and ul. Szczepańska, is the headquarters of the Museum of Kraków and one of the best places to get to grips with the city's history in a single afternoon. It takes its name from…
Hidden gemPalaces
Wisła
In the night before Christmas Eve 1927, the Habsburgs' freshly renovated hunting lodge in Wisła, intended as a residence for the President of Poland, burned down in unexplained circumstances. In its place Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz designed a mo…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Częstochowa
For centuries Częstochowa was two towns, Old and New Częstochowa, and each had its own town hall. The Neoclassical building on Plac Biegańskiego was built for the merged town, halfway between the two former market squares. Today it houses…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Strzelno
A round nave of granite blocks, a square chancel and a horseshoe-shaped tower: St Procopius Rotunda in Strzelno is the largest Romanesque church in Poland built on a circular plan. It survived being turned into a convent gatehouse, desecra…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Ludźmierz
During the coronation in 1963, the sceptre slipped from the hand of the statue of the Virgin Mary and was caught by a young bishop, Karol Wojtyła. Years later many saw this as a sign of his election as pope. Ludźmierz, the oldest parish in…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Wałbrzych
The last cart of coal came up from the Julia mine on 20 September 1996, and less than two decades later the site reopened as one of Poland's largest industrial heritage centres. At the Old Mine (Stara Kopalnia) in Wałbrzych you are often g…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Tarnowskie Góry
The Black Trout Adit in Tarnowskie Góry (Sztolnia Czarnego Pstrąga, roughly SHTOL-nya CHAR-neh-go PSTRON-ga) is a 600-meter stretch of a 19th-century drainage tunnel that visitors explore by boat, deep underground. It formed part of the sy…
Hidden gemCastles
Dobczyce
The dam of Lake Dobczyce literally leans against the castle hill, so from the walls of this royal fortress you look at medieval stonework and at the waters of a reservoir created by damming the Raba river at the same time. This is where th…
Hidden gemCastles
Nidzica
Nidzica Castle was completed in the spring of 1409, and just a year later, on 12 July 1410, the Polish army took it without a fight on its way to the Battle of Grunwald. This mighty brick fortress of the Teutonic Knights, on a hill above t…
Hidden gemCastles
Ostróda
For six weeks in 1807 this Teutonic Knights' castle was Napoleon's headquarters. From here he ran his empire and signed the decree creating the first battalions of a horse-drawn military train in history. Before that, the fortress on Lake…