Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Other
Kraków
The horse-drawn carriages on the Main Market Square are one of Kraków's best-known sights: two-horse rigs wait at the rank and take passengers around the Old Town, most often towards Wawel. The service is run by many private operators, not…
Churches & monasteries
Babice
This dark larch-wood church once stood more than 60 kilometres away, in Niegowić near Bochnia. It was here, in 1948–1949, that a newly ordained curate, Father Karol Wojtyła – the future Pope John Paul II – served his first post. In 1973 th…
Churches & monasteries
Nowy Targ
The wooden Church of the Holy Trinity and St Anthony the Abbot in Łopuszna (Nowy Targ municipality) is a late-Gothic building from the last decade of the 15th century, consecrated in 1504. It stands by the Dunajec river, where the Czerwonk…
Old towns & squares
Kraków
For centuries, kings rode along this same route to Wawel to be crowned, and funeral processions carried their coffins the same way. The Royal Route runs from Matejko Square through St Florian's Gate, the Main Market Square and Grodzka and…
Hiking & tourist trails
Szczawnica
The Pieniny Road (Polish: Droga Pienińska, say "DRO-gah pyeh-NEEN-skah") is a car-free path carved into the cliffs of the Dunajec River gorge, linking the Polish spa town of Szczawnica with the village of Červený Kláštor in Slovakia. Nearl…
Museums
Ciężkowice
On a hill above the Biała river, opposite Ciężkowice, stands a white manor house with a columned porch – Ignacy Jan Paderewski's only home in Poland. The pianist and prime minister bought it in 1897, and his original Petrof piano now stand…
Palaces
Zator
On the road from Zator to Wadowice, in a small village on the edge of the Carpathian Foothills, stands one of the oldest noble residences in western Lesser Poland. The masonry fortified manor in Graboszyce was built around 1570–1580 by Dzi…
Palaces
Zabierzów
The chapel in the manor park at Karniowice was consecrated on 12 May 1624, when the village belonged to Jerzy Pipan — a doctor of medicine and law, a Kraków city councillor and a lecturer at the universities of Kraków and Padua. Today the…
Palaces
Łopuszna
Łopuszna Manor House (Łopuszna is pronounced roughly "wo-POOSH-nah") is one of the finest surviving wooden manor houses of the Polish gentry, a whitewashed single-story home with a tall shingled mansard roof, set at the foot of the Gorce M…
Palaces
Modlnica
For twelve years the ethnographer Oskar Kolberg lived in the white Konopka family manor in Modlnica, just outside Kraków, working on further volumes of his monumental "Lud" ("The People"). Today the classicist residence, with its columned…
Landmarks
Szczawnica
When the rebuilding of Dworek Gościnny in Szczawnica began in 2008, no plans of the building survived. The architects had an old postcard showing a man standing in front of the entrance – they assumed he was about 180 cm tall and used him…
Museums
Kraków
Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory in Kraków is the building where the German industrialist made famous by Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List employed and ultimately protected more than 1,100 Jews during World War II. Today it houses a bran…
Other
Lanckorona
Once a year, in December, Lanckorona turns into a town of angels. The winter festival Anioł w Miasteczku (Angel in the Town) is three days of events in many places at once: an Angel Christmas Market runs on the market square, while concert…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
Eros Bendato in Kraków is the giant bronze head lying on its side in the Main Market Square (Rynek Główny, roughly "RIH-nek GWOOV-nih"), right next to the Town Hall Tower. Created by the Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj, it is one of the most…
Mountains & peaks
Myślenice
Chełm (614 m) rises above the town of Myślenice, and since 1989 visitors have been riding up on one of Poland's longest single-seat chairlifts. The journey of just over two kilometres from Zarabie ends next to a 15-metre lookout tower, fro…
National parks
Ojców
The trail across Okopy Hill runs right along the edge of limestone cliffs secured with rope railings, and one of the crags opens a view over the Prądnik Valley. The wooded summit hides the ramparts of a stronghold that medieval sources lin…
Viewpoints
Krynica-Zdrój
Góra Parkowa (742 m) rises right above the promenade of Krynica-Zdrój, and since 1937 Poland's first funicular railway has run to its summit. Remarkably, it still uses the same original interwar cars. At the top you will find the spa park,…
Viewpoints
Jerzmanowice
Maps still label it "Hill 502", although newer surveys from the early 1990s give its height as about 513 m. Skała 502 in Jerzmanowice, also called Grodzisko, is the highest point of the Olkusz Upland and the second highest summit of the wh…
Historic sites
Olkusz
Less than 3 km west of Olkusz town centre lie the remains of a medieval stronghold: a deep moat, two rings of earthen ramparts and the ruins of the Gothic Church of St John the Baptist. This is where the town's story begins – before Olkusz…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
Gubałówka is a long, largely treeless ridge above Zakopane with a view of the entire Polish Tatras and, in good weather, the Pieniny, Gorce and Żywiec Beskids as well. Since 1938 visitors have ridden up on a funicular built in just 168 day…
Mountains & peaks
Zakopane
Hala Gąsienicowa (roughly "HA-la gon-sheh-nee-TSO-va") is a wide mountain meadow in the Gąsienicowa Valley of Poland's High Tatras and one of the most popular hikes from Zakopane. From the trailhead at Kuźnice it takes a little over two ho…
Nature
Ojców
A lone, slender limestone spire rises from a meadow at the mouth of the Wrześnik ravine, and in autumn it looks like a burning torch – it is wrapped in Virginia creeper whose leaves turn an intense red. Along with Hercules' Club and the Kr…
Caves
Wolbrom
Among the fields outside the village of Strzegowa rises a wooded limestone rock, and two large openings gape in its northern face. Jasna Cave (the name means "bright cave") gets its name from the fact that almost all of it is lit by daylig…
Caves
Ojców
King Łokietek's Cave (Jaskinia Łokietka, roughly "yahs-KEEN-yah wo-KYET-kah") is the largest known cave in Ojców National Park, a small and beautiful protected area of limestone valleys about 25 km north of Kraków. A guided walk leads thro…