Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
gmina Niegowa
The Old Mill – Museum of Old Crafts (Stary Młyn) in Żarki ("ZHAR-kee") is a hands-on museum set in a nearly century-old electric mill in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, a limestone region of southern Poland known for its ruined castles. Ins…
Other
Olsztyn
Below the castle ruins in Olsztyn, a Jurassic Highland village near Częstochowa, folk artist Jan Wewiór has been carving a moving nativity scene for years, which he calls "Bethlehem under the Thatch". It has more than 800 figures carved fr…
Other
Katowice
Every December the high altar and side aisles of the neo-Romanesque Franciscan basilica in Katowice-Panewniki disappear behind a Bethlehem landscape measuring 18 m high, 32 m wide and 10 m deep. The Panewniki crib is regarded as Europe's l…
Technical monuments
Zabrze
Queen Louise Adit (Sztolnia Królowa Luiza, roughly "SHTOL-nyah kroo-LOH-vah loo-EE-zah") in Zabrze is the underground heart of Poland's Coal Mining Museum: more than two centuries of mine workings, giant machines shown in motion and, best…
Museums
Żarki
By the churchyard square of the Leśniów sanctuary, in a brick cellar with early 20th-century arched vaults, lies a slice of the Jurassic seabed. The Exhibition of Jurassic Fossils and Minerals displays around 1,000 original specimens, most…
Museums
Częstochowa
A white, single-storey house with a tall tiled roof and a wooden porch sits in Staszic Park below Jasna Góra, looking as if it had been moved here from a village. In fact it was never a farm: it is an exhibition pavilion from 1909, designe…
Museums
Podzamcze
The Kraków-Częstochowa Upland has its share of spooky tales – of a black dog, of a white lady and of a water demon. In Podzamcze, right next to the ruins of Ogrodzieniec Castle, they have been gathered under one roof. The Castle of Legends…
Castles
Podzamcze
Netflix chose these ruins for the Battle of Sodden in "The Witcher", Andrzej Wajda filmed "Revenge" (Zemsta) here, and in 1984 Iron Maiden recorded a film insert for "Hallowed Be Thy Name". Ogrodzieniec Castle in Podzamcze stands on the hi…
Museums
Gliwice
Despite its name, Piast Castle was never a ducal residence. The building on Pod Murami Street in Gliwice grew out of two medieval town-wall towers, served for centuries as an arsenal, prison and farm, and today houses a branch of the Gliwi…
Castles
Bielsko-Biała
Above Bolesław Chrobry Square, on the edge of the Old Town, stands the oldest and largest historic building in Bielsko-Biała. From a distance it looks like a 19th-century palace with a crenellated tower, but its walls hide a medieval borde…
Castles
Pszczyna
Pszczyna Castle (say "PSHCHI-na") is a former princely residence in southern Poland that now houses one of the country's best-preserved aristocratic interiors. Around 80% of its furnishings are originals from the days of the Hochberg princ…
Castles
Wisła
The Presidential Castle in Wisła ("VEES-wah") is a modernist mountain residence built in 1929–1931 as a gift from the people of Silesia to Polish President Ignacy Mościcki. Its towers deliberately echo a medieval castle, while the interior…