What to See and Do in Poland: A Guide to Attractions

To begin with, we would like to share with you a list of the most famous places in Kraków, the cultural capital of Poland. Krakow is the most visited city and definitely worth a visit at any time of the year. What is worth seeing in Krakow? If you want to spend 2 or 3 days in this beautiful city, be sure to see the Old Town first. The entire medieval old town is among the first sites chosen for the UNESCO's original World Heritage List, inscribed as Cracow's Historic Centre. Another must-see place to learn about the history of Poland and Cracow is Wawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral. The Castle and the Wawel Hill constitute the most historically and culturally important site in Poland. Just off Wawel Hill, by the Vistula River, you will find the statue of the Wawel Dragon, who breathes real fire! Be sure to learn about the legend of this dragon. Another place in Cracow that we highly recommend is Oskar Shindler's Factory. This museum houses an exhibit on the occupation of Krakow during World War II. The exhibit tells the story of the factory and the fate of the 1,200 Jews whose lives Oskar Schindler saved. If you are a history and architecture enthusiast, we also recommend visiting St. Mary's Basilica. St. Mary's Basilica, with its beautiful interiors and magnificent altarpiece by Veit Stoss, is the most famous church in Krakow. Finally, we invite you to see the pearl of Krakow, the former Jewish district of Kazimierz! Kazimierz is the most magical and fascinating district of Krakow. Here, the modernity mixes with tradition, and difficult history with the present. It's worth seeing the Old Synagogue during the day, and strolling through the beautiful narrow streets in the evening. All these places are very frequented by tourists and very crowded. So, if you don't like crowds, and you want to see the beautiful sights of Krakow only from the outside, we recommend renting a bicycle and taking a bike tour along the Vistula River. Cycling along the Vistula River you will reach the beautifully located Benedictine Abbey in Tyniec!.If you need help planning a tour of Krakow, we'd love to help you create an itinerary!

While being in Krakow, be sure to go to Wieliczka, where you can visit the one-of-a-kind Salt Mine! This is an extraordinary place and a historical site that has been delighting tourists for centuries. At the end of the Middle Ages, 300-350 people worked in Wieliczka, and the annual production of salt reached 7-8 thousand tons. Wieliczka was already famous at that time, and the first visitors, including Nicolaus Copernicus, went down to the underground. Any traveler who wanted to visit the underground had to obtain a personal royal permit in those days. Now the now-defunct mine and its beautiful interiors can be visited by anyone who wishes, and guided tours are given in several languages. You can visit the salt mine in the standard way, via the tourist route or by following the mining route! Participants of the mining route, equipped with professional equipment set off under the supervision of a guide to the underground of the mine to learn the work of a miner. Real mining tasks await the participants, and their performance are evaluated by the guide, a former miner! The work that the daredevils face, includes measuring the concentration of methane, weaving ropes, using a map, and even digging with a shovel! There will be plenty of work, but also great satisfaction. At the end of the expedition, all participants receive a prize from the foreman - a certificate confirming that they have acquired their first skills as miners. One more attraction that we recommend to all travelers is an overnight stay in the mine, which you can book with your ticket to the tour! This is definitely an unforgettable experience, as you will be sleeping underground!

The next place you should definitely see to learn about Polish history is the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, a former German concentration and extermination camp. It takes less than an hour and a half to get from Krakow to the Museum by car or bus, so it's worth reserving half a day for the tour, including the drive. The tour itself takes about three hours. You can purchase tickets through the official website, and the tour is guided. The museum consists mainly of two parts of the former camp complex: Auschwitz I Stammlager and Auschwitz II - Birkenau, along with more than 150 building structures, about 300 ruins, authentic roads, ramps, fences, as well as archives that survived the evacuation of the camp and a collection of more than a hundred thousand objects of former prisoners (including suitcases, shoes and objects of daily use) as well as objects of SS origin. The museum makes a great impression on all visitors and remains in the memory for a long time. Since it tells a difficult story, we do not recommend coming to the museum with children.

Staying in the vicinity of Krakow, we would like to recommend you another place for all those who love to spend their vacations in an active way in the mountains! The most famous holiday resort in the Polish mountains is Zakopane, which is called the gateway to the Tatra Mountains. Zakopane is a city where you will see beautiful traditional wooden houses, museums and churches, but also a lot of commercialism and crowds. That's why we recommend spending just one day in Zakopane for sightseeing, and the rest of the time enjoying nature! In Zakopane, it is worth seeing Villa Koliba, the first house in the Zakopane style built according to the design of Stanislaw Witkiewicz. Now it's a museum, located on Koscieliska Street, the oldest street in Zakopane, where you'll encounter historic houses and highlander homesteads every step of the way. Another museum we recommend in Zakopane is the museum of Oscypek, a traditional highland cheese made from sheep's milk. You can make your own oscypek on the spot! If you want to learn more about the Tatra Mountains and their nature, it is worth visiting the Nature Education Center of the Tatra National Park. All these places are worth seeing with a guide who will be able to translate into English or another language! The best thing to do in the Tatras is to go to the mountains! The most famous place in the Tatra Mountains is Morskie Oko, which is a beautiful pond surrounded by high mountains. However, you must know that it is a very crowded place. You should go there very early in the morning to avoid the huge number of tourists. Morskie Oko can be only a stop on your route, because from there you can go to various peaks. There is also a mountain shelter at Morskie Oko where you can stay overnight, but you need to book your room well in advance. There are a lot of hiking trails in the Tatra Mountains and there is something for everyone. If you have experience in hiking in the mountains, all you need is a map and you can spend many days climbing because the paths are well marked. If, on the other hand, you have no experience in the mountains, look for an experienced guide, because the Tatras can be dangerous at any time of the year. If you are planning to stay in Zakopane and the Tatra Mountains in winter, you will also find plenty of attractions and things to do! In the winter in the Tatras, you can of course hike in the mountains, but also go downhill and cross-country skiing. One of the biggest attractions in the Tatras in winter is horse-drawn sleigh rides, is only there is enough snow! We also invite you to read our article about winter attractions in and around the Tatra Mountains here: https://www.treasuresofpoland.com/en/blog/tatra-mountains-in-winter

The Tatra Mountains are beautiful and highly visited, but in the Pieniny Mountains you will also find many attractions and unique experiences! While in Pieniny, it is worthwhile to go rafting down the Dunajec River in a traditional raft. For nearly 200 years, rafting down the Dunajec River gorge has been Pieniny's biggest attraction. Initially it had the character of a social event, sporadically organized for guests of nearby manors and castles. The popularization of rafting was undoubtedly connected with the development of Szczawnica as a health resort and the person of Jozef Szalay. He was the one who gave it a special setting. At the time, rafting was organized in flotillas formed of a dozen rafts. At the head there was a flag boat, decorated with the national colors and the banner of the rafters with the emblem and image of St. Kinga. Patriotic songs were sung and toasts were made. In Szczawnica, the rafts arriving at the shore were greeted by a highlander band, and girls dressed in regional costumes greeted the guests under arches of flowers, leaves and handkerchiefs. In 1934, the Polish Association of Pieniny Rafters on the Dunajec River was founded to organize rafting. Today, nearly 250,000 tourists a year enjoy this way of visiting the Pieniny! Another form of active vacation in Pieniny, still linked to the river, is a bicycle trip along the Dunajec River. It's worth stopping in Szczwanica, renting a bike there and taking the Velo Dunajec route. This is, in our opinion, the most beautiful bicycle route in Poland! It crosses 7 mountain ranges, goes around 3 large lakes, and you can see 7 castles along the way. It's also worth mentioning that Velo Dunajec in the south connects with the circuit around the Tatra Mountains! Of course, in Pieniny you can go hiking in the mountains on one of the beautiful trails. Along the way you have a good chance to see grazing sheep watched over by herding dogs and shepherds. In Pieniny it is also worth seeing the ruins of Czorsztyn and Niedzica castles on Lake Czorsztyńskie.

Wroclaw is a beautiful city, but with little time to stay in Poland, often tourists do not make time to see the capital of Lower Silesia. However, the journey from Krakow or Warsaw to Wroclaw is so short that it is worth stopping here at least for 1 full day to see the Old Town, Ostrów Tumski, the Multimedia Fountain or Panorama Racławicka. For one full day in Wroclaw, we would definitely recommend a walk through the Old Town to start with. When visiting Wroclaw with children, it is worth taking from the tourist information point a map of dwarves, which are a symbol of the city! You can see them on practically every corner, so kids will have a blast trying to spot them! From the Old Town, you may want to take a walk to the Panorama Racławicka. It is a painting that presents the Battle of Raclawice in April 1794, in which Poles won over Russians. The monumental picture is 114m long and 15m high! Next, we recommend taking a walk to Ostrow Tumski. This is the oldest historic part of Wroclaw, full of monuments, churches and beautiful cobblestone streets. It's worth staying at Ostrów Tumski until dusk, because that's when the old lanterns are lit by a Wroclaw lighthouse keeper, and it's undoubtedly an experience that will take you back in time! And in the evening, be sure to go to see the spectacle of the Multimedia Fountain, which is located right next to the Centennial Hall, a Unesco World Heritage Site! There are a lot of places to see in the vicinity of Wroclaw and throughout Lower Silesia, if you are passionate about history! Suffice it to mention Książ Castle, the Church of Peace in Jawor and Świdnica, or the mysterious underground town of Osowka! If you would like to visit Poland and get a personalized itinerary, please fill out the form and we will certainly help!

Gdansk is a city you will fall in love with at first sight. Gdansk is one of the oldest Polish cities, with more than a thousand years of tradition. It is a city that has witnessed events affecting not only the history of Poland, but also the world. It is Gdansk that is considered the symbolic place of the outbreak of World War II. It was also here where Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement was established, which initiated the fall of communism in Poland. Numerous monuments, interesting history and a convenient location on the Baltic Sea make you want to stay in this city forever! Interestingly, people living in Gdansk every year rate their city as the best city to live in Poland. What is worth doing and seeing in Gdansk? Following the trail of history, it is certainly worth seeing the European Solidarity Center, where you will learn more about the movement and the changes that took place in Poland in the 1980s. It is also worth visiting the quite newly built World War II Museum, which tells not only the story of the beginning of the war that began in Gdansk, but also many other stories from this period. To take a little break from history, we recommend a walk on the beach! Being in Gdansk and the Baltic Sea in spring, autumn or winter, you will have a good chance to find the “gold of the Baltic,” that is, amber, cast ashore along with sticks and seashells. Of course, we also recommend the Old Town, with its many monuments, which are worth seeing with a guide.

Traveling with children is not easy! Often we need to find a compromise between the places we want to visit ourselves and those that will please our children. That's why we have prepared a list of attractions in Poland that both adults and children will surely enjoy! If your children love animals, we recommend you 2 zoological gardens worth visiting: in Lodz and Wroclaw. If you like to spend time actively, we recommend rafting down the Dunajec River or the Velo Dunajec bike trail. There are many rivers in Poland where you can kayak, and the most beautiful of them is Czarna Hancza. In winter, you may want to rent cross-country skis and try this sport! A great winter attraction for children will also be a horse-drawn sleigh ride. If you are passionate about cuisine and discovering new flavors, be sure to go to the Living Gingerbread Museum in Torun and visit the Oscypek Museum in Zakopane! In Zloty Stok near Wroclaw, you can visit the Gold Mine. Staying on the topic of exploration, don't forget about Wroclaw's dwarves! If you like searching for treasures, look for amber on a beach in the Baltic Sea, for example, near Gdansk. In the vicinity of Krakow, there is the Eagle's Nest Trail with many ruins of medieval castles, where you can play knights with your children. Also be sure to visit Malbork Castle, where a reenactment of a famous battle takes place every year. There are many ideas for spending a vacation in Poland with children and at the same time you as adults can have fun! If you want us to prepare a personalized itinerary for you, fill out the form and we'll help.