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For Americans who grew up during the cold war, Poland may bring to mind black-and-white images of depressing concrete blocks and poor peasant women with head scarves. Concrete block apartment buildings do exist, but it’s amazing what paint can do. You might see some headscarves in the country, and in the dead of winter, you might wear a head scarf yourself.
And yes, there’s a lot of cabbage, a lot of consonants, and not a lot of racial diversity. But Poland is a vibrant, modern country, full of historical sites, pleasant towns, and natural beauty. The more time you spend there, the more you’ll love it.
Visit Poland: Fun & amazing places to visit
Krakow
No longer an undiscovered jewel, Krakow is now quite clearly a discovered jewel. Even with the throngs of tourists, you’ll still be charmed by the famous Wawel castle and the historic town center, much of which is original. The market square is huge, with the pretty cloth hall holding a court in the middle.
A center of trade for seven centuries, the cloth hall now holds stall upon stall of traditional souvenirs: carved wooden boxes, amber jewelry, amber lampshades, fine crystal, and many other traditional Polish handicrafts. The church on the square has two towers, one higher and fancier than the other. One legend claims that the towers were designed by two brothers, one of whom was lazier than the other.
Guess which one. When the towers were finished, the lazy one was so jealous he killed his brother. No less gruesome, but a lot nobler, is the story of the trumpeter who was on duty in the taller tower, which served as a watch tower when the Tatars attacked. He blew his bugle to warn the people, but the Tatars shot him mid-song. Today a real trumpeter plays the same song, cut off in the middle, in all four directions, every hour. If you fall in love with Krakow, that song will haunt you when you leave.
Auschwitz (Oswiecim)
From the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign (work makes you free) to the displays of human hair “harvested” from the prisoners, to the gas chambers and barbed wire and haunting train terminus, it’s one horrid reminder of what human beings are capable of.
Don’t go alone. About 1.6 million people died here during WWII, more than a million of whom were Jews, and those who survived lived in such wretched conditions that it’s a wonder more of them didn’t die of despair. Some visitors take a flower to lay as a memorial for those who perished here.
Zakopane
Need something to lift the mood of Auschwitz? Try Zakopane, high in the Polish Tatra Mountains. In winter it’s a ski resort, but non-skiers can rent sleds or enjoy snowy walks. In summer hikers take to the trails. You can get to Mt Kasprowy Wierch via a breathtaking cable car, weather permitting. At the top, stand on the border of Slovakia and absorb the 360 views.
Other chairlifts and funiculars take hikers and skiers to other nearby slopes and trails. The little town is full of souvenir stands, some kitschy, some beautiful and original. Want some wool slippers? A wooden sheep? A Zakopane-style hat? You’ve got it. Be sure and try some of the smoked cheese, shaped into little barrels and geometrically interesting little loaves. It’s best hot, from one of the street vendors.
Ogrodzieniec
If you like scrambling around castle ruins, Ogrodzieniec is your place. Built onto a hill, and making use of the natural rock, Ogrodzieniec is so fairy-tale-esque that movies have been filmed here.
Out of the way enough not to attract many tourists, especially foreign ones, and undeveloped enough that your imagination will determine how much you enjoy it, Ogrodzieniec is a definite change of pace from the big cities and tourist hot spots of Poland. Without a car, it’s a bit tricky to get to, but local buses leave from Zawiercie, which is on various bus and train routes.
Hel
English speakers love talking about how this very northern Polish town is Hel on earth, and if you go anytime other than high summer, it may be a cold day in Hel. However, there’s a distinct lack of marketing attention paid to this wordplay, and you probably won’t find a T-shirt. Perhaps this is because the laid-back resort caters mostly to Poles and Germans.
The town is on a peninsula so narrow that if you take the train in, there are stretches where you can see water on both sides. The Gulf of Gdansk is to the south, and the Baltic sea to the north, where sandy beaches and wind-gnarled trees make a pleasant escape, though be warned that the water is very cold until July or so. If you take a boat back to Gdansk, watch as you pass through the shipyards. This is the place credited with the birth of Solidarity.
Gdansk
The colorful center, rebuilt after WWII, offers plenty to gawk at. Especially beautiful is the town hall tower, crowned in gold. You can climb the tower, but better views are to be had from St Mary’s church. Beware: the staircase to the top clings to the inside of a square tower so wide that the openness in the center may give pause to those with a fear of heights.
The viewing platform, too, is precarious and tiny. But the views are worth it. Gdansk hosts many museums and cultural attractions, but the most historically unique is the shipyards. If you’re a fan of Lech Walesa, Solidarity, or democracy, wander the area and find the poignant Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers. In 1970, tired of communist rule, workers here began a strike which the government settled by calling in the army, to no good effect.
Anger over this led later to the Solidarity movement, whose mouthpiece was Lech Walesa. Solidarity (Solidarnosc) helped pave the way for the fall of communism in Poland. Don’t miss the Roads to Freedom Exhibition, which documents this struggle, and gives visitors a glimpse into day-to-day life during communism. After the sobering dip into history, relax or people-watch in Gdansk’s sidewalk cafes and leafy squares, or take a long walk on the river promenade.
Torun
Red brick buildings with high facades, very northern European, give Torun a slightly eerie feel as if it were all designed by some Gothic madman. Or perhaps some power-mad Teutonic knights, ruled most of the region and made Torun into a stronghold.
You can explore the remains of old town walls and a Teutonic castle. Torun is also the best place to combine two of Poland’s points of pride: gingerbread and Copernicus. He was born here, and what better way to celebrate the fact that by taking home and/or eating a gingerbread representation of him?
Final thoughts
Poland has many other great offerings: Wroclaw with its stunning town hall and flower market; pretty pastel Zamosz; the Catholic pilgrimage destination of Czestochowa, where you can see old and young alike crying with emotion over their rosaries; the forested lake district of Masuria; and Warsaw, the often under-rated capital. You can’t see them all in one trip, but that’s good because you’ll want to come back again and again.
Image Credit: Depositphotos
