Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Lakes
Miasteczko Śląskie
Gierzyna is a group of small woodland ponds in Miasteczko Śląskie, protected as an ecological site (użytek ekologiczny) since 2010. Its five shallow pools formed in old sand pits, and today they are a refuge for rare aquatic plants and amp…
Lakes
Siemianowice Śląskie
Rzęsa is the largest pond in Siemianowice Śląskie and the heart of the Bażantarnia nature and recreation area on the edge of town. Water has filled a former sand pit here, and today the pools are ringed by walking and cycling paths, a brin…
Lakes
Złoty Potok
This small pond on the upper Wiercica has two names: a plain one, the Green Pond, and a poetic one, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". According to local tradition the second was coined by the Romantic poet Zygmunt Krasiński, who spent the summe…
Lakes
Tworóg
The Szkarotkowe Ponds near Połomia make a good goal for a quiet walk or bike ride in the forests of Tworóg municipality: a string of woodland ponds covering about 10 ha in total, a shelter, benches and a wooden jetty. There's no boat hire…
Landmarks
Mstów
On a hill outside Mstów stand white stone walls without roofs, with a few barns still roofed among them – from a distance it looks like an abandoned village. This is the old barn quarter on Ściegna hill: a group of about thirty masonry bar…
Landmarks
Żarki
In the eastern part of Żarki, next to one of the largest markets in the region, stands a group of several dozen historic barns built of limestone and brick. They were put up after a fire in 1938 destroyed the earlier timber, thatched build…
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…
Technical monuments
Katowice
On the site of the Katowice colliery, closed in 1999, three buildings went up in 2011–2015 that changed the city's image: the new Silesian Museum, the home of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) and the International Congr…
Historic sites
Żarki
For centuries Żarki in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland was a Polish-Jewish town. The town's Jewish Heritage Trail leads through six stops — from Koziegłowska Street to the Old Market Square — and shows what remains of that community: a synag…
Monuments & mounds
Koniaków
In the hamlet of Trzycatek, on the edge of the village of Jaworzynka, you can walk around three countries in a few minutes: Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Their borders have met here since 1 January 1993, and the actual meeting p…
Landmarks
Częstochowa
On its southern side, the Jasna Góra hill is skirted by a street where the headquarters of the Home Army's commander-in-chief stood in the last months of the Second World War. It was in house no. 21 that General Leopold Okulicki, codename…
Old towns & squares
Katowice
Mariacka Street (say "mar-YATS-ka") is the liveliest pedestrian street in central Katowice, lined with 19th-century townhouses and closed at one end by the soaring neo-Gothic spire of St. Mary's Church. By day it is a relaxed spot for coff…
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,…
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…
Viewpoints
Wisła
The Barania Góra observation tower ("ba-RAH-nya GOO-ra") is a 15-meter steel lookout on the summit of the second-highest peak in Poland's Silesian Beskids. From its deck, on a clear day, you can see the High Tatras, Babia Góra and ranges i…
Viewpoints
Krzyżanowice
On the last few kilometres before the Olza joins it, the Oder still flows as it pleases: it undercuts its banks, builds gravel islands and can even cut through its own bends. The best place to see this is the 27-metre steel lookout tower i…
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…
Silesian
Wisła
The Vistula Cycle Route (Wiślana Trasa Rowerowa) is meant to link the Beskid Mountains with the Baltic: it starts at Wisła Uzdrowisko railway station and is ultimately to end on Sobieszewo Island in Gdańsk. The planned length is around 1,2…
Nature
Miasteczko Śląskie
In the woods near Żyglin, a district of Miasteczko Śląskie, a small scrap of an old dune has survived – a flattened patch measuring about 20 by 40 metres. The rest of the sand was dug out in the 20th century for the coal-mining industry, a…
Nature
Bytom
Between the housing estates of Bytom, Chorzów and Piekary Śląskie lies a patchwork of ponds and reed beds that hosts an unusually large population of the little bittern, Poland's smallest heron. Żabie Doły ("Frog Hollows") grew out of subs…
Lakes
gmina Pilica
A few steps from the market square in Pilica, right by the springs of the river of the same name, lies a small reservoir whose shore offers a view of the town's church towers. In summer it has a bathing area with marked swimming zones and…
Lakes
Poraj
Poraj Reservoir was built not for holidaymakers but for steelworkers: its job was to store industrial water for the Częstochowa steelworks. Yet the planners allowed for recreation from the start, and recreation won. According to Poraj muni…
Lakes
Rybnik
Rybnik Reservoir (Zalew Rybnicki), which locals call the "Rybnik Sea", is a dammed lake on the Ruda river in the northern part of Rybnik, built for the Rybnik power station. For half a century it was famous for its warm water, which did no…
Lakes
Jaworzno
Where the excavators of the Szczakowa sand mine finished work in the 1960s, there is now water. Sosina Reservoir covers about 50 hectares and is surrounded by another 30 hectares of woodland and meadows. In summer it is the main beach for…