Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemMuseums
Białystok
Białystok's town hall was never home to the city authorities – from the start it was a market hall full of stalls. In 1940 the Soviet authorities demolished it to make room for a statue of Stalin, and today's building is a post-war reconst…
Hidden gemPalaces
Puławy
The Czartoryski Palace in Puławy (say "poo-WAH-vih") is the centerpiece of a palace and landscape park that around 1800 was one of the great cultural hubs of Poland — so much so that Puławy was nicknamed the "Polish Athens". Here Princess…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Brzeg
Brzeg Town Hall (say "BZHEG") is one of the finest Renaissance town halls in Poland and, together with the Piast castle a few streets away, the reason to stop in this small Silesian town on the Oder. Built in 1569-1577 by the Italian maste…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Prudnik
In this forest monastery near Prudnik, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński spent a year as a prisoner of Poland's communist authorities — and it was here, reading Sienkiewicz's historical novel "The Deluge", that he came up with the idea of renewing…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Różanystok
The Różanystok Sanctuary (say “roo-ZHAH-nee-stok”) is a late-Baroque minor basilica and one of the main Catholic pilgrimage sites in Podlasie, Poland's quiet north-eastern corner near the borders with Belarus and Lithuania. Its twin-towere…
Hidden gemMuseums
Chabówka
At Chabówka near Rabka, more than 100 historic railway vehicles stand on the tracks, and some of them still run. It is the largest collection of heritage rolling stock in Poland and one of the few places where you don't just look at steam…
Hidden gemMuseums
gmina Łubowo
This is more than a collection of old farmhouses. The open-air museum in Dziekanowice, on Lake Lednica, was designed to recreate the structure of a traditional Wielkopolska village: farmsteads gathered around a village square, a wooden chu…
Hidden gemCastles
Opole
Opole once had two castles, and of the second, "upper" one, a single Gothic tower survives, now embedded in school buildings. It was built at the end of the 14th century by Duke Władysław II of Opole – a prince who served as Palatine of Hu…
Hidden gemCastles
Chudów
The ruin at Chudów looks like a romantic relic of war, but much of it is the product of 19th-century fashion: after a fire in 1875 the owner had only part of the walls secured and the rest pulled down to create a "picturesque ruin". Today…
Hidden gemCastles
Kętrzyn
Kętrzyn Castle is a Gothic Teutonic Order stronghold built around 1360–1374, the oldest monument of the former Rastenburg and today home to the Wojciech Kętrzyński Museum and the town library. The three-winged brick building tells the stor…
Hidden gemCastles
Niemodlin
"Stained-glass windows" made of coloured foil still hang in the cloisters, and in the courtyard you can see monks' cell frames painted on plywood – souvenirs of the film "Jasminum", which Jan Jakub Kolski shot in the then-ruined castle. Ni…
Churches & monasteries
Augustów
The two 50-metre towers of the basilica can be seen from far above the rooftops of central Augustów – although they were only rebuilt in 1986, more than forty years after the war. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the town's mos…
Churches & monasteries
Bielsk Podlaski
The oldest painting in the Bielsk basilica is a century and a half older than the church itself: a Crucifixion of 1622, painted as a memorial to Hanna Kadłubowska, wife of the local scribe Stanisław Kulesza. The Church of the Nativity of M…
Churches & monasteries
Olkusz
St. Andrew's Basilica in Olkusz (say "OL-koosh") is the Gothic parish church of Poland's old "Silver Town," standing at the corner of the Market Square about 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Kraków. Two treasures make it worth a detour: the l…
Churches & monasteries
Katowice
Panewniki Basilica – officially the Basilica of St. Louis the King and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – is a Neo-Romanesque Franciscan church in Katowice, southern Poland, best known for one of the largest moving nativity scenes…
Churches & monasteries
Trzemeszno
From outside you notice the dome first, yet the oldest parts of this church go back to the reign of Duke Bolesław the Wrymouth. The Basilica of the Assumption and St Michael the Archangel in Trzemeszno is a former monastery church of the C…
Churches & monasteries
Białystok
Its crystal-shaped dome is meant to evoke the imagery of the Book of Revelation, and beneath it parishioners spent years pouring foundations and carrying bricks themselves. The Orthodox Church of the Resurrection in Białystok's Leśna Dolin…
Museums
Wadowice
The John Paul II Family Home in Wadowice (say "vah-doh-VEE-tseh") is a biographical museum in the house where Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II, was born on May 18, 1920. At its heart is the reconstructed apartment of the Wojtyła…
Churches & monasteries
Zamarski
First there was only the tower: for almost a century and a half the faithful prayed in an open space beneath a belfry, because there simply was no church. The wooden tower of St Roch's Church in Zamarski, rebuilt around 1585, is according…
Zoos
Hel
The Hel Seal Sanctuary (Fokarium, roughly "foh-KAH-ryoom") is a small seal center at the tip of the Hel Peninsula on Poland's Baltic coast, run by the University of Gdańsk Marine Station. Here you can watch Baltic grey seals up close and l…
Caves
Jerzmanowice
Nietoperzowa Cave (pronounced "nyeh-toh-peh-ZHOH-vah," Polish for "Bat Cave") in Jerzmanowice is one of the best-known show caves of the Polish Jura, the limestone upland just northwest of Kraków. A guided walk takes you through spacious,…
Churches & monasteries
Ojców
The wooden Chapel on the Water ("Na Wodzie"), dedicated to St Joseph the Worker, straddles the Prądnik stream on concrete supports set into both banks, beneath white limestone crags known as the Prałatki. It is one of the most photographed…
Churches & monasteries
Racibórz
The Castle Chapel of St. Thomas Becket in Racibórz (rah-CHEE-boosh) is the Gothic jewel of the town's Piast Castle, often called the "pearl of Silesian Gothic" and the "Silesian Sainte-Chapelle." Built in the late 13th century and dedicate…
Churches & monasteries
Siedlce
The two brick towers of Siedlce Cathedral are 75 m high and the tallest structure in town, visible from far across the flat landscape of eastern Mazovia. The Neo-Gothic Church of the Immaculate Conception was built in 1906–1912 and became…