Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Nature
Wierzchowie
In the 19th century the archaeologist Jan Zawisza dug so many mammoth bones out of this cave that he named it Mamutowa – Mammoth Cave. A huge arched opening in the Kluczwoda Valley near Wierzchowie leads into one of Poland's most important…
Caves
Wierzchowie
Wierzchowska Górna Cave (say "vyeh-HOV-skah GOOR-nah") in the village of Wierzchowie is Poland's longest show cave, about 15 km (9 miles) northwest of Kraków in the Kraków Valleys Landscape Park. A lit, guided route of about 700 m (2,300 f…
Nature
Klucze
Beneath the forests of the Klucze municipality, a few kilometres from the Błędów Desert, lie tens of metres of vertical fissures, shafts and chambers. One cave was found when cavers noticed snow melting in winter above a crack breathing ou…
Lakes
Czchów
Beyond Czchów the Dunajec widens into a long, narrow lake between steep wooded slopes. On a rock above the water stands the rebuilt Tropsztyn Castle, and at the end of the lake the concrete Czchów Dam, with a power station hidden in its bo…
Lakes
Rożnów
This winding, S-shaped reservoir cuts into the Rożnów Foothills with fjord-like bays and peninsulas. Lake Rożnów exists because the Dunajec river kept flooding valleys all the way down to the Vistula, and the dam at Rożnów was built to sto…
Museums
Kraków
Hipolit House (Kamienica Hipolitów, pronounced roughly "kah-myeh-NEE-tsah hee-po-LEE-toof") is a small branch of the Museum of Kraków on Mariacki Square, right behind St. Mary's Basilica in the city's UNESCO-listed Old Town. Medieval cella…
Historic sites
Sucha Beskidzka
A walk from the Renaissance castle in Sucha Beskidzka up a forest path ends at a small stone chapel with a tower topped by an onion dome. It stands at about 500 m above sea level on the south-eastern ridge of Kocurowa Góra, also called Mou…
Churches & monasteries
Kęty
Kęty is where John Cantius was most likely born, on 24 June 1390 – professor at the Kraków Academy, saint and the town's patron. The Baroque church named after him stands near the site of his family home, and on 20 October 2024 it became a…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The Jaszczurówka Chapel (yash-choo-ROOF-kah), formally the Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is one of the most beautiful wooden buildings in Zakopane and a textbook example of the "Zakopane style." It was designed by Stanisław Witkiewi…
Churches & monasteries
Stary Sącz
A few hundred metres from the Poor Clares' convent in Stary Sącz, beside a spring that legend says was found by St Kinga herself, stands a small masonry chapel from 1779. It replaced an older chapel and was built in thanksgiving for healin…
Churches & monasteries
Zawoja
By the road through Zawoja Policzne stands a small white chapel under a shingled roof that rises into an onion dome with a lantern. This is the Chapel of St John the Baptist, known locally as the brigands' chapel — tradition says it was fo…
Churches & monasteries
Tarnów
Tarnów Cathedral – the Cathedral Basilica of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – is the centerpiece of Tarnów's Old Town and home to some of the finest Renaissance tomb sculpture in Central Europe. Its red-brick bulk and 72-meter tow…
Historic sites
Bolesław
On the road from Sławków to Krzykawka, about 2.5 km from Sławków's market square, lies a Jewish cemetery where, according to the county authorities, more than 300 gravestones survive. It formally belonged to the Jewish community of Sławków…
Landmarks
Tarnów
The original gate of Tarnów's Jewish cemetery, through which thousands of Jews passed during the Holocaust, has been held since 1991 by the Holocaust Museum in the United States — a copy stands in its place. Behind it lies one of the oldes…
Churches & monasteries
Stary Sącz
The Poor Clares Monastery in Stary Sącz (say "STAH-ri sonch") is the most important historic site in the Sącz region of southern Poland, about 100 km southeast of Kraków. Founded in 1280 by St. Kinga, a medieval duchess who spent her final…
Monuments & mounds
Kraków
In Kraków, people have been raising earth mounds for over a thousand years – from mysterious tumuli linked to the legendary founder Krak and his daughter Wanda to memorials to Kościuszko, Piłsudski and Pope John Paul II. Together the five…
Mountains & peaks
Brzegi
Twenty-eight summits, from Łysica in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (614 m) to Rysy in the Tatras (2,499 m), adding up to more than 30,000 metres of ascent on your own legs. The Crown of Polish Mountains (Korona Gór Polski) is not a single t…
Museums
Stary Wiśnicz
In a wooden manor at the foot of Wiśnicz Castle, Jan Matejko spent his engagement, took holidays with his family and drew a little town whose wooden houses no one will ever see again. Decades later, during the Second World War, the same ho…
Churches & monasteries
Kraków
For years the people of Nowa Huta, a model socialist-realist town built for steelworkers, fought the communist authorities for a new church. The result of their persistence is the Ark of the Lord (Arka Pana), a boat-shaped church with a 70…
Churches & monasteries
Nowy Sącz
At the end of the 18th century the Austrian authorities turned this church into a military storehouse, and the altar with its miraculous painting was simply boarded up. Today the Holy Spirit Church on Piotra Skargi Street is one of the mos…
Churches & monasteries
Dobczyce
From the outside it is a stone post-war basilica whose tower rises above the market square of Dobczyce. Inside, however, is a Gothic 15th-century Pietà linked to the workshop of Veit Stoss, a medieval crucifix and a 13th-century stoup – th…
Churches & monasteries
Zakopane
The church in Harenda arrived in Zakopane by train. Built in 1710–1720 in Zakrzów near Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, it stood unused and decaying after a new church was built there, until in 1947–1948 it was dismantled, carried to the foot of the…
Churches & monasteries
Czchów
From the market square in Czchów you see a stepped brick gable above a stone church – one of the oldest churches along the Dunajec river. Its chancel was built before 1360, probably funded by King Casimir the Great, and its east wall conta…
Churches & monasteries
Inwałd
The painting on the high altar of the church in Inwałd has an unusual nickname: Our Lady of the Robbers. According to legend it was brought here by brigands, and their leader handed it over to the villagers after his conversion. The church…