Things to do in the Holy Cross region
107 attractions in the Holy Cross region, including Bartek Oak, St James's Church, Sandomierz and Sandomierz Cathedral.
All attractions (107)
Nature
Bartek Oak
Zagnańsk
In 1934 a jury led by the botanist Władysław Szafer named the Bartek Oak "the most magnificent tree in Poland" — and the fame has stuck, even though older trees grow elsewhere in the country. This ancient pedunculate oak in Bartków near Za…
20–45 min
Churches & monasteries
St James's Church, Sandomierz
Sandomierz
This bare brick church on St James's Hill looks austere, but it is one of the oldest churches in Poland built entirely of brick. Dominican friars began building St James the Apostle's Church around 1226, combining Romanesque forms with som…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Sandomierz Cathedral
Sandomierz
From the outside, Sandomierz Cathedral shows a Baroque façade and brick facing from the 19th century. Its greatest treasure is in the chancel, though: Byzantine-Ruthenian wall paintings from the first half of the 15th century. Paintings in…
Hidden gemMountains & peaks
Łysica
Święta Katarzyna
For decades hikers posed by the cross on Łysica's western summit, convinced they were standing on the highest point of the Holy Cross Mountains (Góry Świętokrzyskie). Measurements in 2018, however, showed that a rocky ridge a few hundred m…
Hidden gemCastles
Sandomierz Royal Castle
Sandomierz
On the night of 2–3 April 1656, the retreating Swedish garrison left 300 hundredweight of gunpowder in Sandomierz Castle. It exploded while soldiers and camp followers were looting the building, killing about 500 people — historians count…
Hidden gemCastles
Chęciny Castle
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 gemChurches & monasteries
Wąchock Cistercian Abbey
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
St Martin's Collegiate Church in Opatów
Opatów
Forty-one figures weep at the news of the chancellor's death: King Sigismund the Old, a grand hetman, a bishop, courtiers, musicians — even greyhounds and falcons. This is the Opatów Lament, a Renaissance bronze relief and one of the fines…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Old Synagogue in Pińczów
Pińczów
The Old Synagogue in Pińczów is a stone synagogue built in 1594–1609, one of the oldest surviving Jewish houses of prayer in Poland and the only well-preserved trace of the once large Jewish community of the Ponidzie region. It stands on K…
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
Szydłów Synagogue
Szydłów
From the outside it looks like a small fortress: stone walls about 2 metres thick, heavy buttresses and an attic parapet resembling battlements. Szydłów Synagogue, built in the 16th century within the town walls, is the oldest surviving sy…
Museums
Diocesan Museum in Sandomierz
Sandomierz
The Diocesan Museum in Sandomierz is housed in Długosz House, a late Gothic building from 1476 funded by the chronicler Jan Długosz right next to the cathedral. The star of the collection is "Madonna and Child with St Catherine of Alexandr…
Hidden gemLandscape parks
Nida Landscape Park
Jurków
White gypsum cliffs, loess gullies, karst ponds and slopes covered in feather grass: in places, the Ponidzie region looks like a piece of steppe dropped into southern Poland. The Nida Landscape Park (Nadnidziański Park Krajobrazowy) protec…
Free entry
Hidden gemLandmarks
Opatów Gate in Sandomierz
Sandomierz
Of the four gates that once led into Sandomierz, only this one survives. The Gothic Opatów Gate, built under King Casimir the Great, is now the entrance to the Old Town and one of the best viewpoints in the city: from the terrace at the to…
Hidden gemMuseums
Jan Długosz House in Wiślica
Wiślica
On the wall of one room a small haloed figure kneels beneath a Gothic inscription reading "Lord, have mercy on us". Scholars believe it portrays Jan Długosz – the great medieval chronicler who in 1460 paid for this house for the clergy of…
30–75 min
Hidden gemChurches & monasteries
St Joseph's Collegiate Church, Klimontów
Klimontów
Grand Chancellor of the Crown Jerzy Ossoliński saw how churches were being built in Rome and wanted one of his own in the small town of Klimontów near Sandomierz. The result is St Joseph's Collegiate Church, with a rare elliptical nave sur…
30–45 min Free entry
Hidden gemNature
St. Jadwiga Way
Sandomierz
Queen Jadwiga’s Ravine (Wąwóz Królowej Jadwigi, roughly “VON-voos kroo-LOH-vey yad-VEE-gee”) in Sandomierz is the town’s largest loess ravine: a sunken green corridor about half a kilometer long, with earthen walls several stories high and…
Free entry
Other
Avenue of Stars in Busko-Zdrój
Busko-Zdrój
On the promenade of the Spa Park in Busko-Zdrój, between the main façade of the old Bathhouse (today the Marconi Sanatorium) and the fountain, a row of commemorative slabs is set into the paving. Each carries a bronze "Little Sun" bearing…
10–20 min Free entry
Amusement parks
Bałtów Tourist Complex
Bałtów
The Bałtów Tourist Complex began in 2004 with a dinosaur trail, and according to its owner it now covers around 100 hectares in the Kamienna valley. There is a safari park toured in American school buses, a European bison enclosure, a mini…
360–600 min
Zoos
Bałtów Animal Park (Zwierzyniec Bałtowski)
Bałtów
Every European bison born in Bałtów gets a name starting with "Po-": Polesław, Pojata, Pompon, Poezja. It is a Polish naming tradition for the species, and the herd is the pride of the Bałtów Animal Park (Zwierzyniec Bałtowski) – a safari…
60–90 min
Thermal baths & water parks
Mineral Baths Solec-Zdrój
solec-zdroj
Baseny Mineralne (Mineral Pools) in Solec-Zdrój (say "SOH-lets ZDROOY") is a year-round pool, sauna and health complex in a small spa village in southern Poland, famous for some of the strongest sulfur waters in the country. Its star attra…
Landmarks
Kraków Gate in Szydłów
Szydłów
The Kraków Gate in Szydłów ("SHID-woof") is the only one of the town's three medieval gates still standing, and the emblem of a small town often called the "Polish Carcassonne." This 14th-century stone gate tower, crowned by a Renaissance…
Free entry
Fortifications
Warsaw Gate, Opatów
Opatów
Above the archway of the Warsaw Gate in Opatów a dragon holds a shield bearing the Odrowąż coat of arms – the emblem of the Szydłowiecki family, under whom Opatów flourished as a merchant town at a crossroads of trade routes. The gate is t…
Free entry
Museums
Willa Polonia Art Gallery in Busko-Zdrój
Busko-Zdrój
The green wooden villa at the entrance to Busko's old town looks like a typical spa guest house from a century ago. Few spa visitors know that during the German occupation it housed a Nazi Special Court, and in the cellar a jail where up t…
Technical monuments
Ciuchcia Express Ponidzie narrow-gauge railway
Jędrzejów
The Świętokrzyska Narrow-Gauge Railway, better known as the "Ciuchcia Express Ponidzie", is a heritage line running from Jędrzejów towards the Nida river. The tourist train rolls through the meadows, fields and woods of Ponidzie, and the f…