99 attractions in West Pomerania, including Underground City on Wolin Island, Szczecin Underground Routes (air-raid shelter) and Poland's Wedding…
Fortifications
Świnoujście
The Underground City on Wolin Island (Podziemne Miasto, roughly "pod-ZHEM-neh MYAS-toh") in Świnoujście is a bunker complex where World War II and the Cold War meet. Hidden under the dunes of the Przytór district, a German coastal artiller…
Museums
Szczecin
Szczecin's Underground Routes take you into a World War II air-raid shelter hidden beneath the city's main railway station, Szczecin Główny. It is one of the largest civilian shelters in Poland, and in about an hour you can follow three se…
Monuments & mounds
Kołobrzeg
The Poland's Wedding to the Sea Monument in Kołobrzeg (roughly "ko-WOB-zheg") is a bold modernist landmark in the seaside park between the lighthouse and the pier. Unveiled in 1963, it commemorates the symbolic "wedding" of Poland and the…
Monuments & mounds
Mrzeżyno
Among the coastal pines of Mrzeżyno stands a large fieldstone boulder with a plaque, flanked by flagpoles. It marks 17 March 1945, when soldiers of the 1st Warsaw Cavalry Brigade reached the Baltic here and performed Poland's "wedding to t…
Coast
Kołobrzeg
Kołobrzeg Harbor (roughly "ko-WOB-zheg") is the lively heart of this Baltic spa town: at the mouth of the Parsęta River, fishing boats, excursion ships and yachts share the quays, while a lighthouse on an 18th-century fort watches over the…
Coast
Mrzeżyno
Mrzeżyno harbour was founded — as its own port authority puts it — "for the sake of peace and quiet". In 1457 the townspeople of Trzebiatów, tired of disputes with Gryfice over navigation on the Rega and of an armed clash with Kołobrzeg, w…
Coast
Ustronie Morskie
The Ustronie Morskie promenade and beach (say oo-STRO-nyeh MOR-skyeh) are the heart of a laid-back Baltic resort about 10–12 km (6–7 miles) east of Kołobrzeg, on Poland's northwest coast. A wide sandy beach lined with wooden groynes, a sea…
Coast
Dziwnów
Dziwnów Promenade (pronounced roughly "JEEV-noof") is a seaside walkway of about 2.5 km in the small Baltic resort of Dziwnów in northwestern Poland. Its newest stretch, the Western Promenade, runs along the very top of a white sand dune,…
Coast
Międzyzdroje
The seafront promenade is Międzyzdroje's drawing room: it runs along the beach, links the pier, the Avenue of Stars and the Spa Park, and since 1996 its main section has been called Promenada Gwiazd (Promenade of Stars). Resort villas bega…
Coast
Świnoujście
The Świnoujście promenade (say "shvee-no-OOYSH-cheh") is the seafront walkway of this Polish spa town on the island of Usedom, running parallel to the beach from the harbor breakwater to the German border. Its big selling point: it continu…
Landmarks
Stargard
The gable of Stargard's town hall looks like stone lace: stepped, divided by cornices into five tiers and filled with tracery of interlocking circles and pointed arches. Behind this façade stands one of the oldest monuments in town, whose…
Landmarks
Szczecinek
Every day at noon a bugle call rings out from the tower of Szczecinek Town Hall – an excerpt from Henryk Łabęda's song "Powróciłaś do nas ziemio" ("You Have Returned to Us, Land"), played from loudspeakers on all four sides of the tower si…
Fortifications
Kołobrzeg
Among the yachts of the Solna Marina in Kołobrzeg hides an 18th-century five-sided earthwork – one of the best-preserved parts of the town's former fortress. The Morast Redoubt, or Marsh Redoubt, defended the harbour and the mouth of the P…
Old towns & squares
Trzebiatów
Trzebiatów Market Square and Town Hall (Trzebiatów is pronounced roughly "tsheh-BYAH-toof") form the heart of a small medieval town in northwestern Poland, about 30 km southwest of the Baltic resort of Kołobrzeg and some 110 km northeast o…
Old towns & squares
Darłowo
Above the entrance to Darłowo's town hall hangs a stone tablet that sums up the town's history in a few lines – and ends by saying the town hall was rebuilt in 1725, "and let it be for the last time". The wish came true: the town council s…
Technical monuments
Świnoujście
Stawa Młyny (roughly "STAH-vah MWIH-nih", "the Mills beacon") is a white, 10-meter navigation mark shaped like a windmill at the tip of the western breakwater in Świnoujście, where the Świna River meets the Baltic Sea. It is the town's bes…
Hiking & tourist trails
Międzyzdroje
The red-marked Coastal Trail follows the entire Polish Baltic coast: from the German border at Świnoujście to Żarnowiec, a distance of 377.8 km. It runs along beaches, dune ridges, clifftops and coastal forest, passing two national parks,…
Fortifications
Kołobrzeg
Kołobrzeg Fortress is not a single castle but a scattered set of forts, redoubts and earthworks around the harbor and town of Kołobrzeg (roughly "ko-WOB-zheg"), on Poland's Baltic coast. For more than two centuries, from 1653 to 1872, this…
Hiking & tourist trails
Dźwirzyno
The Velo Baltica cycle route from Kołobrzeg to Dźwirzyno and Mrzeżyno (jvee-ZHI-no, mzhe-ZHI-no) is one of the most enjoyable stretches of Poland's Baltic coast trail: roughly 20 km (12 miles) of flat riding through coastal pine forest, pa…
Hiking & tourist trails
Kołobrzeg
The Velo Baltica between Kołobrzeg and Ustronie Morskie is a short, flat stretch of EuroVelo 10, the long-distance cycle route around the Baltic Sea. From Kołobrzeg's port and parks it follows the seafront and then runs along a dune embank…
Viewpoints
Szczecin
Wały Chrobrego (say "VAH-wee khro-BREH-go"), also called Chrobry Embankment or by its old German name, the Haken Terrace, is Szczecin's grandest viewpoint and the city's signature sight. Stately early-20th-century buildings line a terrace…
Other
Świnoujście
Wybrzeże Władysława IV (Władysław IV Waterfront) is a quayside street and promenade along the Świna river in central Świnoujście, on the island of Usedom (Uznam) – the place where it is clearest that this is first and foremost a port town.…
Nature
Dźwirzyno
West of Kołobrzeg, between Dźwirzyno and Grzybowo, the beach shows a textbook cross-section of the Baltic coast in a small space: pale, shifting white dunes, then lower grey dunes covered in grassland, and beyond them pine forest on the du…
Viewpoints
Międzyzdroje
Zielonka Hill on the eastern edge of Lubin is a viewpoint of Wolin National Park overlooking the backward delta of the Świna. From a wooden shelter you look out over a maze of marshy islands, channels and shallows, the Szczecin Lagoon and…