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Many of the old town centres Poland is known for are rebuilt: much of the country's historic architecture was damaged or destroyed in the Second World War and painstakingly reconstructed, using the original bricks and ornaments where possible. Behind the rebuilding is a longer story of a country that vanished from the map for 123 years and came back. Wikivoyage's guide to Poland pairs that history with a landscape that runs from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Tatra Mountains in the south, with primeval forest, lakes, rolling hills and flat plains in between. Poland sits at the centre of Europe, covers 322,575 km² and had 37.5 million people in 2024. Its capital is Warsaw and its currency the złoty.
Map of Poland. Photo: Burmesedays, amendments and translation by Globe-trotter and Alexander Tsirlin, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Where to go
| City | What the guide says |
|---|---|
| Warsaw | Capital and a business centre; its nearly destroyed old town was rebuilt in a style inspired by Canaletto's paintings |
| Kraków | The "cultural capital", the historical capital of the Middle Ages, with a UNESCO-listed centre and the largest medieval market place in Europe |
| Gdańsk | The former German city of Danzig, rebuilt after the war, with Hanseatic heritage and a good base for Baltic resorts |
| Wrocław | An old Silesian city built on 12 islands, with more bridges than any European town except Venice, Amsterdam and Hamburg |
| Toruń | A perfectly preserved Gothic old town, one of the few Polish cities to escape devastation in the war |
| Łódź | The textile city once called the "Polish Manchester", with Piotrkowska Street, the longest walking street in Europe |
| Poznań | A merchant city considered, with Gniezno, the birthplace of the Polish nation and church |
| Lublin | The biggest city in eastern Poland, with a well-preserved old town and unusual Renaissance elements |
| Zamość | A town planned on Italian ideas of the "ideal town" and called by UNESCO a unique example of a Renaissance town in Central Europe |
Kraków was the capital of Poland through most of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Photo: Daniel.zolopa, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl.
Wrocław. Photo: Jar.ciurus, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl.
Outside the cities, the guide points to 23 national parks. Białowieża, on the Belarus border, is a World Heritage site holding the last remains of the primeval forest that once covered most of Europe, and the only place where European bison still live in the wild. The Tatras hold Poland's highest peak and the dangerous Eagle's Path, Orla Perć. Słowiński National Park has some of the largest sand dunes in Europe, and the Masurian Lake District has around 2,000 lakes. World Heritage sites include Malbork's castle, the Wieliczka salt mine, which has been worked continuously since the 13th century, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, which the guide says leaves an impression unlike any other World Heritage site.
Malbork Castle. Photo: DerHexer, CC BY-SA 3.0.
A short history behind the sights
| Period | What happened |
|---|---|
| 966 | Mieszko I, the first common ruler of the Polish tribes, adopts Catholicism as the state religion |
| 14th to 16th century | Poland's golden age under Casimir the Great and the Jagiellonians; the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is the largest country in Europe in the 16th century |
| 1596 | The capital moves from Kraków to Warsaw under the Vasa dynasty |
| 1772, 1793, 1795 | Three partitions among Russia, Prussia and Austria, with a progressive constitution passed on 3 May 1791 in between; Poland does not exist as a country for 123 years |
| 11 November 1918 | Independence regained after the First World War |
| 1939 | Germany attacks on 1 September and the Soviet Union on 17 September |
| 1945 to 1989 | Poland is a Soviet satellite state; the Solidarity union forms in 1980, martial law runs from 1981 to 1983, and free elections in 1989 remove the communist government |
| 1999 and 2004 | Poland joins NATO and then the European Union |
The war cost Poland nearly 30 percent of its population and left nearly all its important cities destroyed. The guide says about 90 percent of the country's long-standing Jewish population was murdered, and that survivors were persecuted by the communist government into leaving. Poles still tend to be sensitive about this history, and the guide's list of topics to approach with care includes the war, Nazi collaboration, the Katyń massacre, the communist period and relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Germany.
Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science, perhaps the most prominent monument to the communist era in Poland. Photo: Stanislav Kozlovskiy, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Getting there and around
Poland belongs to the Schengen Area, so there are normally no border controls with neighbouring members. Citizens of the United States, South Korea and Israel may stay up to 90 days without a visa; time in Poland counts against the time another Schengen country would allow. Warsaw Chopin Airport is the main international hub, LOT Polish Airlines is the flag carrier, and Warsaw's second airport, Modlin, is mostly used by low-fare carriers. Berlin to Warsaw by train takes about 6 hours.
Inside the country, Warsaw to Kraków trains run every two hours and Warsaw to Gdańsk hourly, both in under 3 hours, and the guide calls inter-city trains modern, comfortable and fairly punctual. For trips under 100 km, private charter buses are far more popular than trains. Station signs and timetables are in Polish; at stations, "Główny" means main station, and in Warsaw you want Centralna. Taxis should be ordered from a company, with the meter on at the right tariff, because unaffiliated drivers near airports and stations are likely to overcharge; Bolt and Uber work in many cities. GPS routing can steer you onto poor local roads, so it is usually better to stay on numbered national roads.
Eating and drinking
The usual rhythm is a light breakfast, a larger lunch around 13:00 to 14:00 and supper at about 19:00. The guide's essentials:
- Soups: barszcz (red beet soup), often served with dumplings, and żurek, a sour-rye soup with sausage and a hard-boiled egg, the most common in restaurants.
- Mains: pierogi, gołąbki (cabbage rolls), kotlet schabowy (breaded pork chop) and bigos, a thick hunter's stew on a base of pickled cabbage.
- Street food: zapiekanka, an open-faced toasted baguette with mushrooms and cheese.
- Cheese: oscypek, a smoked or unsmoked hard sheep's cheese, and bryndza, a soft one, both made in the Podhale mountains and protected by the EU.
- Milk bars: a nearly extinct kind of cheap canteen from communist times, where meals can cost under 25 zł if you skip the meat.
- Drinks: beer is the favourite, ordered as a "big one" (0.5 litre) or a "small one" (0.3 litre); vodka comes plain or flavoured, with Żubrówka, flavoured with bison grass, a must-try; tea is traditionally served in glasses, and refusing a hot drink when invited into a home may be seen as impolite.
Pierogi. Photo: MOs810, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Water with a meal is usually bottled and charged for, though tap water is safe.
Manners and cautions
Poland is generally safe, with less crime in Warsaw or Kraków than in Paris or Rome, according to the guide, but pickpockets work crowds, stations and airports. Touts steering visitors into strip clubs should be refused, since such places are known to fleece customers. Drinking alcohol in public outside licensed venues is illegal and strictly enforced, and promoting Nazi or communist symbols is a crime. Politeness counts: bring a gift when invited home, and flowers in odd numbers (even numbers are for funerals), and ask whether to take your shoes off. Do not use Russian or German words for "thank you" or old German names for Polish towns. The guide advises saying "Central Europe" rather than "Eastern Europe". Attitudes toward LGBT visitors are generally more accepting in the west and in cities than in the east and the countryside.
Transport details, prices and rules here are as the guide stood at its last update, so check current information before you go.
Sources
- Wikivoyage contributors, "Poland", https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Poland, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changed here: rewritten and condensed in hubnx's own words; phone numbers, prices, opening hours and listings are left out; photographs are credited in their captions, each under its own licence. This version stays CC BY-SA 4.0.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Adapted from en.wikivoyage.org
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