The "Landmarks" category gathers 160 buildings and sites that are not castles, palaces or churches: universities, townhouses, city gates, theatres, cemeteries and other notable architecture. You will see many of them on a city walk.
Wawel in Kraków is the royal hill above the Vistula with the castle, the cathedral and the Dragon's Den – the hill itself is free to enter. In the Cloth Hall the ground floor with its stalls is free, while the upper floor holds the Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art. The University of Wrocław shows off the Baroque Aula Leopoldina and the Mathematical Tower with a view of the old town. In Warsaw, the University Library has a rooftop garden of more than a hectare with a free terrace over the Vistula. Łódź Jewish Cemetery covers 42 hectares and has about 160,000 matzevot, and Villa Koliba in Zakopane is the first house in the Zakopane style, designed by Stanisław Witkiewicz.
Most landmarks in this category are in Lesser Poland (close to 30), the Silesian region (close to 20) and Pomerania (over a dozen). Kraków, Gdańsk and Warsaw lead among cities.
In practice: a visit usually takes 45 minutes to an hour and a half, and many sites – such as Sigismund's Column or the University of Warsaw campus – can be seen from outside without a ticket. Interior tickets usually cost from about a dozen to a few dozen złoty; at the Cloth Hall gallery pupils and students pay 1 zł. With children, Wawel and the Dragon's Den work well.
Landmarks
Kraków
Wawel Hill in Kraków is the limestone rise above the Vistula River where Polish kings lived, were crowned and were buried for more than five centuries. Crowned by the Royal Castle and Wawel Cathedral, it is Poland's most symbolic historic…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Cloth Hall in Kraków (Sukiennice, say "soo-kyeh-NEE-tseh") is the long Renaissance market hall standing in the middle of the Main Market Square – one of Europe's largest medieval town squares and the centerpiece of Kraków's UNESCO-list…
Landmarks
Wrocław
The main building of the University of Wrocław stretches 171 metres along the Oder – and according to the original plans it was meant to be even longer, with three towers. The Jesuits built it between 1728 and 1739 on the site of a former…
Landmarks
Warsaw
The University of Warsaw Library (BUW, pronounced "boov") in the riverside Powiśle district is one of the city's most striking modern buildings, and its rooftop garden is free, open to everyone and one of the largest roof gardens in Europe…
Landmarks
Łódź
Behind a red-brick wall in the Bałuty district lies a forest of matzevot (Jewish headstones), mausoleums and old trees. The Jewish Cemetery on Bracka Street opened in 1892 and is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. It covers ab…
Landmarks
Zakopane
The landowner Zygmunt Gnatowski wanted to build an ordinary highlander's cottage in Zakopane to house his ethnographic collection. Stanisław Witkiewicz talked him into something new. The result, built in 1892–1893, was Villa Koliba, the fi…
Landmarks
Warszawa
Thousands of students walk through the neo-Baroque gate on Krakowskie Przedmieście every day, but few stop at the bronze plaque on its pillar: Fryderyk Chopin lived and studied within these walls from 1817 to 1827. The Main Campus of the U…
Landmarks
Wrocław
The main building of the University of Wrocław stretches 171 metres along the Oder – and according to the original plans it was meant to be even longer, with three towers. The Jesuits built it between 1728 and 1739 on the site of a former…
Landmarks
Kraków
Wawel Hill in Kraków is the limestone rise above the Vistula River where Polish kings lived, were crowned and were buried for more than five centuries. Crowned by the Royal Castle and Wawel Cathedral, it is Poland's most symbolic historic…
Landmarks
Warszawa
When a statue of a king on a tall column went up in 1644 on the square outside the Kraków Gate, the papal nuncio protested: until then, only saints, Christ and the Virgin Mary had been raised so high. Sigismund's Column (Kolumna Zygmunta I…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Cloth Hall in Kraków (Sukiennice, say "soo-kyeh-NEE-tseh") is the long Renaissance market hall standing in the middle of the Main Market Square – one of Europe's largest medieval town squares and the centerpiece of Kraków's UNESCO-list…
Landmarks
Warszawa
Every year on 1 and 2 November, actors, journalists and musicians stand at the gates of Old Powązki with collection tins. The fundraiser started by Jerzy Waldorff in 1975 pays for the repair of chapels, tombstones and sculptures, and in 20…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Kraków Barbican (Polish: Barbakan, "BAR-bah-kahn") is a Gothic brick fortress with seven slender turrets, standing in Planty Park just outside St. Florian's Gate. Built at the end of the 15th century as the northernmost outpost of the…
Landmarks
Kraków
The Sigismund Bell (in Polish Dzwon Zygmunta, roughly "dzvon zig-MOON-tah") hangs in the tower of Wawel Cathedral in Kraków and is Poland's most famous bell. Cast more than 500 years ago, it rings only on the most important religious and n…
Landmarks
Warszawa
From the terrace of the Palace of Culture, Złote Tarasy looks like a glass wave spilling between Warsaw Central Station and Złota Street. Beneath its undulating steel-and-glass roof is one of Warsaw's best-known shopping centres, opened on…
Landmarks
Warszawa
The University of Warsaw Library (BUW, pronounced "boov") in the riverside Powiśle district is one of the city's most striking modern buildings, and its rooftop garden is free, open to everyone and one of the largest roof gardens in Europe…
Landmarks
Kraków
The facade bears the motto "Kraków to the national art", and on the stage behind it, on 16 March 1901, Wyspiański's play "The Wedding" had its world premiere — one of the defining moments of Polish culture. The Juliusz Słowacki Theatre, op…
Landmarks
Łódź
Behind a red-brick wall in the Bałuty district lies a forest of matzevot (Jewish headstones), mausoleums and old trees. The Jewish Cemetery on Bracka Street opened in 1892 and is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. It covers ab…
Landmarks
Zakopane
The landowner Zygmunt Gnatowski wanted to build an ordinary highlander's cottage in Zakopane to house his ethnographic collection. Stanisław Witkiewicz talked him into something new. The result, built in 1892–1893, was Villa Koliba, the fi…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Kraków
Behind the synagogue at 40 Szeroka Street lies one of the oldest surviving Jewish cemeteries in Europe. The Remuh Cemetery (also spelled Remah) has received the dead since 1551, and its oldest matzevah dates from 1552 — in Poland only Wroc…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Sopot
In the Oliwa Forest, on the edge of Sopot, lies one of the largest open-air amphitheatres in Europe. The Forest Opera in Sopot has more than 5,000 seats, excellent acoustics and over a century of history: before the war it was called the "…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Siedlęcin
The Ducal Tower in Siedlęcin (say "shed-WEN-cheen") is a 14th-century residential tower on the Bóbr River, a few kilometers northwest of Jelenia Góra in Lower Silesia. It is among the largest medieval tower houses in Central Europe, but it…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Gdańsk
Ołowianka Island (pronounced roughly "oh-woh-VYAN-kah") is a small island on the Motława River in the center of Gdańsk, directly across from the medieval Crane and the Long Embankment. In a compact area it packs the rebuilt granaries of th…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Ojców
The Kraków Gate (Brama Krakowska) in Ojców (say "OY-tsoof") is a pair of towering limestone pillars that guard the mouth of a side gorge in the Prądnik Valley, the heart of Ojców National Park. Just 25 km north of Kraków, it is one of the…
Hidden gemLandmarks
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 gemLandmarks
Zakopane
This small cemetery on Kościeliska Street holds around 500 graves, and roughly half belong to the people who created the legend of Zakopane: writers, painters, doctors, mountain guides and TOPR rescuers. Almost every headstone is a work of…
Hidden gemLandmarks
Lanckorona
On the wooded summit of Lanckorońska Góra in 1771, Polish insurgents of the Bar Confederation stopped none other than Alexander Suvorov — the Russian corps suffered heavy losses here and had to retreat. All that remains of King Casimir the…
Landmarks
Bytom
Locals call it Bytom's Powązki, after Warsaw's famous historic cemetery, and the comparison fits: beneath old trees lie a mayor who ran the town for 37 years, a priest who fought for the Polish language in Upper Silesia, Bytom's best-known…
Landmarks
Krynki
In 1897 nearly 85% of Krynki's five thousand inhabitants were Jewish, and what remains of that community today is above all a hill on the northern edge of town. The cemetery on Zaułek Zagumienny Street covers about 2.5 ha, and in the late…
Landmarks
Białystok
On busy Jana Pawła II Avenue, at No. 62, stands a small Neoclassical rotunda with a domed roof and a columned portico that locals call Napoleon's House (Domek Napoleona). The name comes from a romantic legend – in reality it was a customs…
Without a ticket you can see Wawel Hill, the ground floor of the Cloth Hall, Sigismund's Column, the University of Warsaw campus and the rooftop garden of the University Library in Warsaw.
The hill is free. The castle (two floors) costs 95 zł, reduced 71 zł; the Treasury, Armoury and Underground 47 zł each, the Dragon's Den 15 zł and the cathedral with its museum 26 zł.
In Lesser Poland – close to 30 in the catalogue, most of them in Kraków – followed by the Silesian region and Pomerania with Gdańsk.
Updated: · Opening hours and prices can change — check the attraction page before you go.