Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemNature
Kudowa-Zdrój
Błędne Skały (roughly "BWEN-deh SKAH-wih", meaning "Errant Rocks") is a sandstone rock maze in Table Mountains National Park in southwestern Poland, on the edge of the spa town of Kudowa-Zdrój and close to the Czech border. At about 853 m…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Smolnik
On an empty hill above the San valley, away from today's houses, stands a lone wooden church with three tent roofs. St Michael the Archangel's Church in Smolnik, dating from 1791, is the only surviving Boyko-style church in the Polish Bies…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Kraków
Behind the synagogue at 40 Szeroka Street lies one of the oldest surviving Jewish cemeteries in Europe. The Remuh Cemetery (also spelled Remah) has received the dead since 1551, and its oldest matzevah dates from 1552 — in Poland only Wroc…
Hidden gemNature
Kościelisko
Limestone rock gates, caves, meadows with shepherds' huts and a stream that has carved a gorge over thousands of years — the Kościeliska Valley is the second-largest valley in the Polish Tatras and the richest in karst features. A gentle t…
Hidden gemLakes
Ścibórz
A broad expanse of water on the Nysa Kłodzka River, with the Sudetes on the horizon — Lake Otmuchów is an artificial reservoir built in 1928–1933 between Otmuchów and Paczków. It combines flood protection and power generation with fishing,…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Legnica
Legnica Cathedral, the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, is the largest Gothic church in Legnica (pronounced "leg-NEE-tsah"), a historic city in Lower Silesia, southwestern Poland. Its twin green spires dominate the old town skyline, and…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Kraków
Mogiła Abbey (say "mo-GHEE-wah") is a Cistercian monastery in Kraków's Nowa Huta district – and the oldest landmark of a neighborhood better known for Stalin-era architecture. Monks have lived here without interruption since 1222. Its basi…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Białystok
An openwork tower topped by a figure of the Virgin Mary on a crown rises over central Białystok from the hill on Lipowa Street. St Roch's Basilica was built as a church-monument to Poland's regained independence and is one of the key works…
Landscape parks
gmina Łubowo
Lednica Landscape Park protects the countryside around Lake Lednica ("led-NEE-tsa") in western Poland, halfway between Poznań and Gniezno on the Piast Trail. It's where Poland's story begins: on the island of Ostrów Lednicki stood a 10th-c…
Hidden gemMuseums
Katowice
Above ground you see only glass cuboids, the brick buildings of a former mine and a headframe. The actual Silesian Museum is hidden underground: its galleries occupy underground levels beneath the site of the closed "Katowice" coal mine. I…
Hidden gemGardens
Wrocław
The Japanese Garden in Wrocław (VROTS-wahv) is one of the oldest Japanese-style gardens in Central Europe, tucked into Szczytnicki Park next to the UNESCO-listed Centennial Hall. Created for the 1913 Centennial Exhibition, it is a calm oas…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Sopot
In the Oliwa Forest, on the edge of Sopot, lies one of the largest open-air amphitheatres in Europe. The Forest Opera in Sopot has more than 5,000 seats, excellent acoustics and over a century of history: before the war it was called the "…
Hidden gemMuseums
Chorzów
On the highest hill of the Silesian Park, Poland's largest and oldest planetarium has stood since 1955. The Silesian Planetarium has a dome 23 m across, onto which a new projector casts some 100 million stars, and after a PLN 136 million r…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Piechowice
Two rocky bowls carved by glaciers beneath the main ridge of the Karkonosze, with cliffs, gullies and snow that lingers well into spring — Śnieżne Kotły (the Snowy Cirques) form the most alpine landscape in the Polish Sudetes. On their rim…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Czajewszczyzna
Suwałki Landscape Park (roughly "soo-VOW-kee") is Poland's oldest landscape park and one of the most striking pieces of scenery in the country's far northeast. Within about 63 km² (24 sq mi) you'll find steep glacial hills, fields scattere…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Karłów
A trapezoid block of rock covered in forest, visible from around Kłodzko and from Náchod in the Czech Republic — this is Szczeliniec Wielki, the highest peak of the Table Mountains. 680 stone steps lead up to the plateau, where a labyrinth…
Hidden gemFortifications
Giżycko
Boyen Fortress in Giżycko (say "gee-ZHITS-ko") is a vast 19th-century Prussian fort in the heart of Poland's Masurian Lake District, about 250–280 km north-east of Warsaw. Built to guard a narrow strip of land between two lakes, it still h…
Hidden gemCastles
Gniew
The brick quadrangle above the point where the Wierzyca flows into the Vistula is one of the mightiest castles the Teutonic Knights built on the river's left bank. Gniew Castle was built from 1290 over about 40 years, and in the 17th centu…
Hidden gemCastles
Chęciny
The two round towers on a limestone ridge above Chęciny are visible from the S7 expressway long before the exit. Chęciny Castle is a royal stronghold from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries that resisted capture for more than 250 year…
Hidden gemCastles
Łęczyca
A red-brick quadrangle on an artificial mound above the Bzura River, this is one of Casimir the Great's most important strongholds in central Poland. At Łęczyca Royal Castle King Władysław Jagiełło held war councils before the conflict wit…
Hidden gemCastles
Legnica
Piast Castle in Legnica is one of the oldest stone castles in Poland and the former seat of the Piast dukes who ruled this part of Silesia for five centuries. Two Romanesque towers, a Renaissance gateway and the excavated remains of a 13th…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Prudnik
Biskupia Kopa (say "bees-KOO-pya KOH-pa"; 890 m) is the highest peak of the Opawskie Mountains, a small range of the eastern Sudetes on the Poland–Czech border, and one of the peaks of the Crown of Polish Mountains. Beech forests, a mounta…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Białystok
The walls and domes of this church are shaped like the tongues of fire that descended on the apostles at Pentecost — hence its dedication. The Church of the Holy Spirit in Białystok's Wysoki Stoczek district is considered the largest Ortho…
Hidden gemLakes
Czorsztyn
On one shore stand the ruins of Czorsztyn Castle, on the other Dunajec Castle in Niedzica, and between them lies water that as recently as the 1990s was a valley of villages and fields. Lake Czorsztyn is a reservoir on the Dunajec River, s…