The tripto catalogue lists 73 viewpoints: observation towers, hills above towns, Jurassic rocks and terraces on old buildings. Most are free and make a good addition to exploring the area.
From Three Crosses Hill in Kazimierz Dolny, reached by steps from Zamkowa Street, you get the town's most famous view over the Vistula valley. Near Poznań, Dziewicza Góra has a viewing tower about 40 metres high with free entry and a terrace at 30 metres. A funicular from 1937, the oldest in Poland, runs up Parkowa Hill in Krynica-Zdrój; on a clear day you can see the Tatras from the top. Czubatka in Klucze shows the Błędów Desert from above, and Leman Hill in Piaszno in Kashubia has a tower over 20 metres high overlooking the lakes. The highest point of the southern Jura is Skała 502 in Jerzmanowice, with a view over the Będkowska Valley.
Most viewpoints in the catalogue are in Lower Silesia (about 10), Lesser Poland (about 10) and the Silesian region (close to 10).
In practice: half an hour to an hour is usually enough, including the walk up. Visibility is best in autumn and winter under high pressure, and in the morning after rain; at midday in summer the panoramas are often hazy. Towers may close in strong wind or icy conditions. Some viewpoints are old towers – such as the Leaning Tower in Ząbkowice Śląskie, which tilts more than a metre – with tickets and opening hours.
Viewpoints
Kazimierz Dolny
Three Crosses Hill in Kazimierz Dolny (Góra Trzech Krzyży, roughly "GOO-rah TSHEH-h KSHI-zhih") rises about 50 m above the Market Square and offers the town's most famous view: red roofs, the parish church, the castle ruins and the broad V…
Viewpoints
Czerwonak
Dziewicza Góra (roughly "dzhyeh-VEE-chah GOO-rah," meaning "Maiden's Hill") is the highest point of the Puszcza Zielonka forest near Poznań, rising to 144.9 m (475 ft) in the Czerwonak municipality, about 10 km northeast of the city center…
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
Klucze
Czubatka is a 382 m hill on the western edge of Klucze village and one of the easiest viewpoints over the Błędów Desert – Poland's largest expanse of loose sand, covering about 33 km². You can drive right up, and from the fenced terrace yo…
Viewpoints
Tuchomie
On a hill in Piaszno, in the Tuchomie district south-west of Bytów, stands a wooden viewing tower built not by the local authority but by a local farmer. Leman's Hill rises to 220 m above sea level and the tower is 20 m tall – from the pla…
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…
Hidden gemViewpoints
Ząbkowice Śląskie
The Leaning Tower of Ząbkowice Śląskie stands 34 m tall and leans 2.14 m off the vertical, making it the most tilted tower in Poland. Nicknamed the "Silesian Pisa", it is also open to visitors: 139 steps lead to the top. A visit also revea…
Hidden gemViewpoints
Kruszwica
According to the chroniclers, the cruel Prince Popiel was eaten by mice in a tower above Lake Gopło – except that today's Mouse Tower was built almost four hundred years after the legend supposedly took place. It is an octagonal brick towe…
Hidden gemViewpoints
Cieszyn
Of the four towers that once defended the castle of the Dukes of Cieszyn, only one survives. Climb the 120 steps of the Piast Tower and you reach a terrace overlooking two towns on either side of the Olza River — Polish Cieszyn and Czech Č…
Viewpoints
Wrocław
Bastion Sakwowy in Wrocław (roughly "SAHK-vo-vy"; long known locally as Partisans' Hill) is a 16th-century bastion of the old city walls that was turned into a romantic hilltop promenade in the 19th century. Following a major restoration c…
Viewpoints
Klucze
Czubatka is a 382 m hill on the western edge of Klucze village and one of the easiest viewpoints over the Błędów Desert – Poland's largest expanse of loose sand, covering about 33 km². You can drive right up, and from the fenced terrace yo…
Viewpoints
Chechło
From Dąbrówka hill in Chechło you look straight out over Poland's largest expanse of shifting sand. The viewpoint, at 355 m above sea level, faces the northern, treeless part of the Błędów Desert – the part you are not allowed to enter, be…
Viewpoints
Władysławowo
The best-known viewpoint in Władysławowo is the tower of a socialist-realist hotel built for fishermen, which now houses the mayor's office. The Fisherman's House (Dom Rybaka) at ul. Hallera 19 has two viewing terraces at 45 and 63 m above…
Viewpoints
Czerwonak
Dziewicza Góra (roughly "dzhyeh-VEE-chah GOO-rah," meaning "Maiden's Hill") is the highest point of the Puszcza Zielonka forest near Poznań, rising to 144.9 m (475 ft) in the Czerwonak municipality, about 10 km northeast of the city center…
Viewpoints
Koszalin
This wooded moraine ridge on the eastern edge of Koszalin was a landmark for the whole area as early as the Middle Ages. On its highest point, Krzyżanka (136 m above sea level), stands a brick observation tower from 1888, and next to it a…
Viewpoints
Czajewszczyzna
This perfectly conical hill rising above the lakes of the Suwałki region looks like a volcano, which is why visitors nicknamed it the Fujiyama of Suwałki. Góra Cisowa is 256 metres above sea level and the symbol of Suwałki Landscape Park,…
Viewpoints
Pelplin
On a hill just outside Pelplin stands a 33-metre steel cross, clad in shiny metal that reflects the landscape of the Kociewie region. The height is no accident – it symbolises the years of Jesus's life. Here, on 6 June 1999, Pope John Paul…
Viewpoints
Tuchomie
On a hill in Piaszno, in the Tuchomie district south-west of Bytów, stands a wooden viewing tower built not by the local authority but by a local farmer. Leman's Hill rises to 220 m above sea level and the tower is 20 m tall – from the pla…
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
Kudowa-Zdrój
Above the Spa Park in Kudowa-Zdrój rises a wooded ridge whose southern paths were already used by spa guests in the 18th century. Park Hill (Góra Parkowa, German Schlossberg, 477 m) hides the wooden Love Gazebo, a viewpoint over the town a…
Viewpoints
Nowa Ruda
St Anne's Hill rises within the town limits of Nowa Ruda, and on its summit stands a stone lookout tower from 1911, one of the first modernist towers in the Sudetes. A short way below is a Baroque pilgrimage church with a hermit's house an…
Viewpoints
Kazimierz Dolny
Three Crosses Hill in Kazimierz Dolny (Góra Trzech Krzyży, roughly "GOO-rah TSHEH-h KSHI-zhih") rises about 50 m above the Market Square and offers the town's most famous view: red roofs, the parish church, the castle ruins and the broad V…
Viewpoints
Parchatka
There are two Hills of Three Crosses on the Vistula near Puławy. The one in Kazimierz Dolny rises right above the market square in the middle of town; the one in Parchatka offers only a wooded climb up a loess gully and a view over the eas…
Viewpoints
Nowa Ruda
The round red-sandstone tower on All Saints' Hill carries a relief of a Prussian field marshal above its door, a reminder of the Moltke family, who helped pay for it in 1913. From its gallery, about 15 metres up, you can even see Śnieżka i…
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…
Viewpoints
Józefów
In the limestone walls of the Babia Dolina quarry in Józefów, a sharp-eyed visitor can find clam shells about 20 million years old – from the Miocene, when conditions here resembled today's Great Barrier Reef. Stone has been quarried here…
Viewpoints
Kazimierz Dolny
Every old townhouse, granary and wall in Kazimierz Dolny can be traced back to one place – the quarry on ul. Krakowska. The pale rock, known locally as opoka, was extracted from an open pit until the early 1980s. Once the quarry closed, it…
Viewpoints
Susiec
In the pine forest on the south-eastern slope of Krzyżowa Góra, a wide, pale basin of a disused quarry opens up. Its walls, about 200 m long and more than ten metres high, show a cross-section of the Roztocze hills like a geology textbook,…
Viewpoints
Gdynia
Kamienna Góra ("ka-MYEN-na GOO-ra," Stone Hill) is a wooded hill right above central Gdynia and the seaside boulevard, with the city's most popular viewpoint. From the terrace beneath a tall cross you look out over the port, the marina, th…
Viewpoints
Międzyzdroje
Kawcza Góra (roughly "KAHF-chah GOO-rah") is a beech-covered hill in Międzyzdroje ("myen-dzih-ZDROY-eh"), a seaside resort on Poland's Baltic coast, with a viewpoint perched above a sea cliff. It rises 61 m (200 ft) above the Pomeranian Ba…
Most are, for example the towers on Dziewicza Góra and Leman Hill or Czubatka above the Błędów Desert. Towers in historic buildings and funiculars, such as the one up Parkowa Hill in Krynica-Zdrój, usually charge.
In cool, dry air – in autumn, winter and in the morning after a weather front. At midday in summer the horizon is often hazy.
In Lower Silesia and Lesser Poland (about 10 each in the catalogue) and the Silesian region. There are also several good viewpoints above the Błędów Desert and in Kazimierz Dolny.
Updated: · Opening hours and prices can change — check the attraction page before you go.