141 Best Sights in Poland

Housed in a baroque palace—and in an annex across the street—the branch of the National Museum in Szczecin is devoted mainly to art: older paintings, sculpture, and antiques (most 13th- to 16th-century Pomeranian), and some other Polish pieces from the 17th century. The building itself is a palace of the former regional parliament, Sejm Stanów Pomorskich, built between 1726 and 1727 and designed by Gerard Cornelius von Walrawe. The highlights of the museum include an 18th-century oak cross from the cathedral in Kamień Pomorski, richly sculpted 13th-century columns from the Cistertian cloister in Kołbacz, a portrait of Prince Filip I by Lucas Cranach the Younger from 1541, and a set of 16th- and 17th-century gold jewelry and robes.

The former Franciscan monastery, just south of the old walls of the Main Town, exhibits 14th- to 20th-century art and ethnographic collections. Hans Memling's triptych Last Judgment is the jewel of the collection and is alone a good reason to visit.

In the village of Granica, near Kampinos and Żelazowa Wola, you'll find the Muzeum Puszczy Kampinoskiej: a small and somewhat dusty museum in a lovely wooden villa, explaining both the local fauna and flora, and the local history. It contains mementoes from the times of the January Uprising (1863, against the Russian Empire) and World War II. Although the museum was established in the 1960s, the building itself is older: a lovely sample of the Polish "vernacular style," typical folk-inspired, wooden architecture of 1920s. The museum is a good starting point for a walk in the woods of the Kampinos National Park.

Two museums can be found in a beautiful park surrounding the cathedral in Oliwa in the former Abbots' Palace. The Modern Art Museum has a large collection of works by Polish artists from the interwar period onward. The collection includes paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and textiles. The Ethnographic Museum next door has the same hours and contact information but a separate admission fee.

The stunning country estate of the Radziwiłł family includes an impressive baroque palace designed by Tilman van Gameren in the late 17th century. In 1945, the estate was taken over by the National Museum of Warsaw, and it still contains the home's original furnishings. When you walk around the museum, you can admire wooden panels, cobalt tiles, imposing stoves and fireplaces, and numerous paintings and sculptures—notably the ancient head of Niobe. The palace outbuilding houses temporary exhibitions of modern art. The regular, symmetrical baroque park, designed in the 16th century, is truly magnificent. The palace's hunting pavilion contains a number of limited-access guest rooms, where you can stay if you apply far in advance and have a valid reference from an associated artistic, scientific, or political organization. (Book far ahead; no children allowed.)

To get here from Żelazowa Wola, return to the 2 (E30) and drive west to Łowicz; then take Route 70 southeast about 10 km (6 miles). PKS buses run from Warsaw's main bus station in the direction of Łowicz, with stops at both Nieborów and Arkadia. Several guided tours starting in Warsaw include both Chopin's birthplace in Żelazowa Wola and Nieborów (and sometimes Arkadia Park as well).

The Muzeum w Łowiczu displays folk crafts and traditions of the area, as well as Polish baroque art. Among the most interesting exhibits are local costumes with characteristic fabrics of colorful stripes, the coffin portraits of local burghers, and several good baroque sculptures.

If you're interested in all things military, you might want to visit this museum's exhibits of weaponry, armor, and uniforms, which trace Polish military history for the past 10 centuries. Heavy armaments are displayed outside. In a few years, the museum will move to the new building, now under construction—but until then, it remains open in the old location.

This impressive collection of both machines and textiles is an important record of the industry that make Łódź the city it is today. Many of the displays are interactive, making the sightseeing fun for kids and for adults, too. The museum is housed in the Biała Fabryka Geyera (Geyer's White Factory). In this very building, in 1839, the first steam engine in Poland was launched. The Textile Museum organizes the International Triennial of Tapestry (the 15th edition took place in 2016).

In the old coach houses on the east side of the park you'll find the Muzeum Łowiectwa i Jeździectwa, which contains a collection of stuffed birds and animals native to Poland.

Nadwiślański Park Etnograficzny showcases the folk culture of the regions situated west of Kraków all the way to the old Silesian frontier on the Przemsza River. This 10-acre area contains more than 20 wooden buildings accompanied by exhibits grouped into three sections: town homes, religious buildings, and rural architecture. There is also a restaurant designed to look like a typical country cottage.

Łowicz Cathedral mixes Renaissance and baroque styles, but its history goes back to the 12th century. Buried under its floor are famous bishops and laypersons. Worth noting are the rococo altar, beautifully carved 17th-century stalls, and side chapels—especially the chapel of Saint Victoria, Łowicz's patron saint. The latter chapel was designed in the 16th century by Jan Michałowicz of Urzędów, a renowned Polish Renaissance-era artist, who is also buried in the cathedral's crypt.

At the entrance to this formal garden, there is a 19th-century weighing booth, just inside the gate, still in operation. There is also a well-equipped playground for small children, with sand, swings, and slides.

Arkadia Park is, like Nieborów, a part of the Radziwiłł family estate and was a noble obsession of Helena z Przeździeckich Radziwiłłowa, who devoted 20 years of her life to the making of it. The imaginary realm of happiness, the romantic park is landscaped in the English style and was designed by renowned landscape architects of the time (in the late 18th century and early 19th century). The 14-hectare parkland is filled with nooks and oases for contemplation and paths for strolling around, brooks and lakes, and fairy-tale construction: artificial ruins, grottoes, and the like.

Built in the early 18th century, the palace was reconstructed in 1818 in neoclassical style by the Russian governor of Poland, the grand duke Constantine. Until 1994 it was—and is again since 2010—the official residence of Poland's president. Now the building is used for some gala state occasions and for some performances during the summer Chopin festival. Belvedere Palace stands just south of the main gates to Łazienki Park. It is not open to visitors.

Now the home of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Czapski Palace dates from the late 17th century but was rebuilt in 1740 in the rococo style. Zygmunt Krasiński, the Polish romantic poet, was born here in 1812, and Chopin once lived in the palace mews.

This 17th-century palace was given a neoclassical front in the 19th century. The courtyard at the rear still contains massive late-Renaissance buttresses and is worth a visit because of its plaque commemorating Zagloba's fight with the monkeys, from Sienkiewicz's historical novel The Deluge. In a small garden in front of the palace stands a monument to Adam Mickiewicz, the great Polish romantic poet. It was here that Warsaw University students gathered in March 1968, after a performance of Mickiewicz's hitherto banned play Forefathers' Eve, which set in motion the events that led to the fall of Poland's Communist leader Władysław Gomułka, a wave of student protests, and a regime-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign.

Today, the palace is the home to the Catholic organization Caritas and is not open to visitors.

This massive Stalinist-Gothic structure looks like a wedding cake and is the main landmark in the city. Some hate it, some love it but it's been a national monument since 2007. From the 30th floor you can get a panoramic view. The old joke runs that this is Warsaw's best view because it is the only place from which you can't see the palace. To view all of urban Warsaw from 700 feet up, buy tickets at the booth near the east entrance. But do see the interiors as well, and try to see beauty in them. The building houses a number of facilities, including a swimming pool and the Museum of Science and Technology, with a display that hasn't changed for several decades, making it charmingly vintage, and not at all high-tech. Curiously, the Palace is also home to several species of animals: cats live in the second level underground, peregrine falcons on the 43rd floor, and, since 2015, there are even beehives.

This palace was built in the 17th century by the Radziwiłł family (into which Jackie Kennedy's sister Lee later married). In the 19th century it functioned as the administrative office of the czarist occupiers—hence its present name. In 1955 the Warsaw Pact was signed here; later the palace served as the headquarters for the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, and since 1995 it has been the official residence of Poland's president. In the forecourt is an equestrian statue of Prince Józef Poniatowski, a nephew of the last king of Poland and one of Napoléon's marshals. He was wounded and drowned in the Elster River during the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, following the disastrous retreat of Napoléon's Grande Armée from Russia.

The palace is not open to vistors.

A baroque gateway and false moat lead to the wide courtyard that stretches along the front of Wilanów Palace, built between 1681 and 1696 by King Jan III Sobieski. After his death, the palace passed through various hands before it was bought at the end of the 18th century by Stanisław Kostka Potocki, who amassed a major art collection, laid out the gardens, and opened the first public museum here in 1805. Potocki's neo-Gothic tomb can be seen to the left of the driveway as you approach the palace. The palace interiors still hold much of the original furniture; there's also a striking display of 16th- to 18th-century Polish portraits on the first floor. English-speaking guides and audio-guides are available.

Outside of the Pałac Wilanów, to the left of the main entrance, is a romantic park with pagodas, summer houses, and bridges as well as a lake. Behind the palace is a formal Italian garden from which you can admire the magnificent gilt decoration on the palace walls. There's also a gallery of contemporary Polish art on the grounds. Stables to the right of the entrance now house a poster gallery, the Muzeum Plakatu that is well worth visiting—this is a branch of art in which Poles have historically excelled.

This magnificent palace—often called "Pałac na wyspie," which means "Palace on the Island"—is the focal point of the Park Łazienkowski. Initially a baroque garden pavillion, it was bought for the king's summer residence in 1764 and remodelled into a neoclassical palace modelled on the likes of Villa Borghese in Rome. The palace has some splendid 18th-century furniture as well as part of the art collection of King Słanisław August Poniatowski. The king not only admired the works of art for their aesthetic value, but he had an ambition to "shape the spiritual culture of the nation" and planned to create the first modern, public museum of art.

On April 19, 1943, the Jewish Fighting Organization began an uprising in a desperate attempt to resist the mass transports to Treblinka that had been taking place since the beginning of that year. Though doomed from the start, the brave ghetto fighters managed to keep up their struggle for a whole month. But by May 16, General Jürgen Stroop could report to his superior officer that "the former Jewish District in Warsaw had ceased to exist." The ghetto had become a smoldering ruin, razed by Nazi flamethrowers. A monument marks the location of the house at nearby ulica Miła 18, the site of the uprising's command bunker and where its leader, Mordechaj Anielewicz, was killed. Today, it stands opposite the main gate of the POLIN museum, which it predates by nearly 70 years.

Unveiled in 1989, this monument constitutes a poignant reminder of what World War II meant for the citizens of Warsaw. Massive bronze figures raise defiant fists above the sewer openings used by Polish resistance fighters in Warsaw's Old Town to escape the Nazis in 1944.

Dating from 1790, Warsaw's oldest cemetery is worth a visit if you are in a reflective mood. Many well-known Polish names appear on the often elaborate headstones and tombs. There is also a recent memorial to the victims of the Katyń Massacre, when 4,000 Polish servicemen, who had been taken prisoner when the Soviets were still aligned with the Nazis, were murdered by the Soviet army on orders from Stalin in 1940 in the Katyń Forest. Enter from ulica Powązkowska.

Officially established in 1959, the ancient kingdom of nature now known as Puszcza Kampinoska became a UNESCO-listed biosphere reserve in 2000. The area has a variety of landscapes and diverse habitats with dune belts separated by swampy areas and a mixture of forest types (bog-alder forest, ash-alder floodplain forest, pine-oak mixed forest, and low oak-lime-hornbeam forest). In addition to the many elk, which feature in the Park's logo, many other species live there, including lynx, rabbits, foxes, deer, European beaver, and wild boar. Some 121 different birds species have been observed here—either as residents or more temporary visitors—including black stork, herons, and cranes. The forest also has some 4,000 resident insect species and more than 1,100 plant species, including 60 protected varieties. In most years, between 500,000 and 1 million visitors hike the park's many trails.

There are many well-marked walking trails in the Kampinos National Park. The main trail of 55 km (34 miles) crosses the park from east to west (from Dziekanów Leśny to Brochów). The lower, green trail also begins in Dziekanów and travels 51 km (32 miles), ending at Żelazowa Wola, Chopin's birthplace. There are several short trails starting in Truskaw—notably the yellow trail of insurgents and partisans—and the blue folklore trail. If you are planning a true hiking trip rather than a short walk, it is worth the trouble to pick up the map of Kampinoski National Park in advance. You can easily spend an entire day in the area.

The most convenient starting points for day-hikers include Truskaw village (in the eastern corner of the park) or Kampinos (in its southwestern section). Both can be reached by PKS bus from Warsaw. If you are driving from Warsaw, you can use one of the unguarded parking lots at the outskirts of the park These can be found in Truskaw, Wólka Węglowa, Granica, or Dąbrowa Stara. You can get to Kampinos in 30 minutes on the suburban Bus 208 towards Sieraków. First, you need to take a metro to Młociny terminus, where you will find the bus stop.

Although Gdańsk's original town hall was completely destroyed during World War II, a careful reconstruction of the exterior and interior now re-creates the glory of Gdańsk's medieval past. During the summer season the tower is accessible to visitors and well worth climbing for the view. Inside, the Muzeum Historii Miasta Gdańska (Gdańsk Historical Museum) covers more than five centuries of Gdańsk's history in exhibits that include paintings, sculptures, and weapons.

The Old Town Hall dates back to the turn of 15th century and was rebuilt in the 18th century. Since 1975, the building has hosted the Museum of History of Town, a division of the National Museum In addition to a permanent exhibition on the history of Szczecin, you can also admire a treasure found in the Podzamcze (Lower Castle) in 1999, a vast collection of 14th- and 15th-century coins and about 300 pieces of burghers' silver as well as some gold jewelry.

Warsaw's so-called "New Town" was actually founded at the turn of the 15th century. This part of the city, however, was rebuilt after World War II following popular 18th- and 19th-century styles and has a more elegant and spacious feel about it than the Old Town. The centerpiece of the district is the leafy New Town Square, slightly more irregular and relaxed than its Old Town counterpart. The houses on the square—and in such nearby streets as ulica Kościelna—have curiously stark and formalized wall paintings.

This is the hub of life in Warsaw's Old Town. The earliest settlers arrived at this spot during the 10th and 11th centuries. Legend has it that a peasant named Wars was directed to the site by a mermaid named Sawa—hence the name of the city in Polish, Warszawa. (Sawa has been immortalized in Warsaw's official emblem.) In the 14th century Warsaw was already a walled city, and in 1413 its citizens obtained a borough charter from the princes of Mazovia. The present layout of the Old Town dates from that time, and traces of the original Gothic buildings still surround the Old Town Square. The appearance of today's square, however, largely dates from the 16th and early 17th centuries, when Warsaw's wealth and importance grew rapidly as a result of the 1569 Polish-Lithuanian union and Warsaw's new status as Poland's capital city.

The Old Town Square is usually very active, even though no traffic is allowed and there is no longer a formal market. Artists and craftspeople of all kinds still sell their wares here in the summer, but don't expect many bargains—tourists are their prime targets. Musical performances are often held here on weekends on a stage erected at the north end of the square. Horse-drawn cabs await visitors. To explore some of the square's beautiful and historic houses, visit the Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza on the east side of the square and the Muzeum Historyczne Warszawy on the north side. After being almost completely annihilated during World War II, these mansions were meticulously reconstructed using old prints, plans, and paintings. For some of the best Gothic details, look for No. 31, traditionally known as the House of the Mazovian Dukes. At night the square is lit up romantically. If you're after good food and atmosphere, this is one of Warsaw's best places to hang out after dark.

Krzywe Koło (Crooked Wheel Street) runs from the Old Town Square to the reconstructed ramparts of the city wall. From this corner you can see out over the Vistula and also over the New Town stretching to the north beyond the city walls. As you look out over the town walls and down the Vistula embankment, you will see the Stara Prochownia (Old Powder Tower), now a popular venue for poetry readings, music, and drama.

Directly underneath the main square, this permanent exhibition, a branch of the Kraków City Historical Museum, presents the history of the city in its European context. The interactive displays, using multimedia technology, can often feel like time travel; most importantly, it incorporates pieces of the actual archaeological site, allowing the visitor to walk over real medieval tracts (the oldest dating back to the 11th century). Layer after layer, some 1,000 years of history can be uncovered before your eyes. There's an interactive zone for children, and some fun surprises—can you spot the portrait of a medieval Polish king who actually winks at you?

Plan at least two hours to properly enjoy your visit.

The Polish Houses of the Sejm (parliament) are housed in a round, white debating chamber that was built during the 1920s, after the rebirth of an independent Polish state.

The only way to tour the parliament building is on an organized group tour on a weekday, which you can book online up to three months in advance.