Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Katowice
The Cathedral of Christ the King in Katowice (Katowice: kah-toh-VEE-tseh) is the mother church of Upper Silesia, Poland's historic industrial heartland, and one of the most monumental churches built anywhere in the country in the 20th cent…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Olsztyn
In the winter of 1807 the French locked about 1,500 prisoners of war inside St James's Church in Olsztyn, and to survive the frost they burned almost everything made of wood. That is why the interior of today's co-cathedral is plainer than…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Wąchock
Grey and rusty-red sandstone blocks laid in horizontal bands — that is how you recognise the Cistercian abbey in Wąchock at first sight. The two-tone masonry is the work of Italian stonemasons who worked here around 1200. The complex is re…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Kraków
Most visitors in St Mary's Square look up at the towers of St Mary's Basilica — and walk straight past the smaller church on the other side of the square. Yet St Barbara's holds a stone Pietà from the late 14th century, a carved Garden of…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Smołdzino
Czołpino Lighthouse (say "chow-PEE-no") is a red-brick tower from 1875 standing on a forested dune inside Słowiński National Park, on Poland's central Baltic coast. Unlike most Polish lighthouses it is far from any town – you reach it by a…
Hidden gemAmusement parks
Chorzów
In 1970 the Silesian Amusement Park welcomed 2 million visitors — a record that says a lot about what this funfair meant to Upper Silesia. Opened in 1959 in Silesian Park in Chorzów, it is the oldest amusement park in Poland. Since 2017 it…
Hidden gemCoast
Sopot
Sopot Pier (Molo w Sopocie; say "SOH-pot") is the signature landmark of Poland's Baltic coast. The wooden promenade is 511.5 meters long, with 458 meters stretching out over the Gulf of Gdańsk, and its story began in 1827. Walking to the e…
Hidden gemMuseums
Kraków
The Museum of Kraków is not a single building but a network of sites across the city: from the Barbican and the Town Hall Tower, through the underground of the Market Square, to Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory and the shelters of Nowa Hut…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Legnica
It was meant to be a vast four-wing complex with two courtyards and a monumental tower, but only the first section was ever built. Even so, Legnica's New Town Hall, erected in 1902–1905, is impressive: five storeys, ornate gables, knights…
Hidden gemPalaces
Kamieniec Ząbkowicki
The Palace of Marianne of Orange in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki (say "kah-MYEN-yets zomb-ko-VEETS-kee") is a vast neo-Gothic castle-style palace in Lower Silesia, southwestern Poland, designed by the great Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schink…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Sokołda
When Knyszyn Forest Landscape Park was established in 1988, it was the largest landscape park in Poland. Today it covers 72,860 ha in twelve municipalities north and east of Białystok, and forests make up 78% of its area. It is a good choi…
Nature
Jałówka
A dozen or so kilometres north of Białystok begins a forest that naturalists compare to the taiga. Knyszyn Forest covers about 1,050 km² of spruce and pine woods, springs and river valleys, making it the second-largest forest complex of th…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Katowice
Katowice Market Square (Rynek, pronounced roughly "RIH-nek") is the main square of Katowice, the largest city of Poland's Upper Silesia region, and the natural place to start exploring downtown. Trams cross it, the main streets meet here,…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Legnica
With its double flight of steps, mansard roof and onion dome, Legnica's Old Town Hall looks more like a small Baroque palace than an office building. The city's guidebooks call it the finest building of its kind in Lower Silesia. It stands…
Hidden gemWaterfalls
Brzegi
Adam Mickiewicz never set foot in the Tatras, yet the best-known group of waterfalls on the road to Morskie Oko bears his name. Mickiewicz Falls are three larger and several smaller cascades on the Roztoka stream, 3 to 10 m high, whose roa…
Hidden gemCastles
Jawor
Few castles in Poland served as a prison for so long: the Piast residence in Jawor fulfilled that role for more than two hundred years, from the time of Frederick the Great until 1956. Beneath its uniform 19th-century façade, however, hide…
Hidden gemCastles
Kwidzyn
Kwidzyn Castle (say "KVEE-dzin") is a 14th-century Gothic stronghold of the Pomesanian cathedral chapter in northern Poland, built by the same brick-Gothic tradition as the Teutonic Knights' famous Malbork Castle. Together with the adjoini…
Hidden gemCastles
Lidzbark Warmiński
The Castle of the Warmian Bishops in Lidzbark Warmiński (say "LEEDZ-bark var-MEEN-skee") is one of the best-preserved Gothic fortified residences in Poland and for more than four centuries the main seat of the prince-bishops of Warmia. The…
Hidden gemCastles
Olsztyn
A white cylindrical tower rising from a limestone crag is one of the best-known silhouettes on the Trail of the Eagles' Nests. The ruins of the castle in Olsztyn near Częstochowa hold the story of a governor starved to death, a dramatic de…
Hidden gemCastles
Żywiec
The Old Castle in Żywiec passed through the hands of the Skrzyński and Komorowski families, Queen Constance, the Wielopolskis and the Habsburgs — and each of them left a mark. The most valuable is the Renaissance arcaded courtyard, modelle…
Hidden gemZoos
Opole
Opole Zoo has opened three times: before the war, after the war, when the menagerie had to be rebuilt from scratch, and after the great flood of 1997, which nearly sealed its fate. Today more than 1,000 animals of over 200 species live on…
Hidden gemTechnical monuments
Cisna
In 1994 this little railway hauled its last load of timber, and it looked destined for the scrapyard. Today it carries more than 160,000 passengers a year and ranks among the most popular narrow-gauge lines in Poland. The Bieszczady Forest…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Turzańsk
Five onion domes above a single long roof and a wooden bell tower on the same axis, said to be the tallest in the Polish Carpathians — this is the tserkva (Eastern-rite wooden church) of St Michael the Archangel in Turzańsk. Built in 1801–…
Hidden gemAmusement parks
Zator
133 rides and shows, 20 roller coasters and a coaster that, when it opened, was the tallest and fastest hyper coaster in Europe. Energylandia in Zator, opened on 14 July 2014, is the largest amusement park in Poland and welcomed around 2 m…