Poland Travel Guide

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One of Europe's most underrated countries, Poland offers a huge amount for travelers of all stripes - from the wild scenery of its mountainous south, with its great skiing and hiking, to the stunning old towns of Krakow, Zamosc and Gdansk and the wilderness of the Bialowieza National Park and the Great Malsurian Lakes in the country's north.

Warsaw and Krakow
Modernising and changing fast, the Polish capital Warsaw was almost totally destroyed during WWII, when it was home to Europe's most notorious ghetto. Today the city is a combination of Soviet and contemporary, with a painstakingly recreated old town and an upbeat, progressive population. Yet most tourists head straight for the country's biggest draw, Krakow, the country's royal capital and a stunningly preserved architectural marvel that has somehow managed to survive the many wars that have used Poland as a battle ground.

Poland's heritage
Poland is a nation with a proud cultural heritage, in all spheres. The former textile city of Lodz is proud of its film school, alma mater to directors Roman Polanski and Krzysztof Kieslowski. Toruń boasts of being the hometown of astronomer Nicholas Copernicus and Warsaw claims Marie Curie and Frederick Chopin as natives. The country's biggest port and northern boomtown, Gdansk is best known as the origin of Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, which was founded in 1980 and eventually lead the country out of communism and into democracy in 1989.

Poland's wild landscapes
Poland's scenic beauty is as varied as it is extraordinary. The Baltic coast has some excellent sandy beaches, as well as the Slowinski National Park with its ethereal forests, bogs and sand dunes. In the country's northeast are the Great Malsurian Lakes, a playground for boat enthusiasts of all kinds with its hundreds of pristine lakes broken up by dense forest. The Krakow-Wielun Upland with its limestone areas, caves and medieval castles is another highlight, while perhaps most beautiful area of all is around the Carpathian Mountains in the far south.

Geography

Poland shares borders to the east with the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, to the south with the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic and to the west with Germany. To the north lies the Baltic Sea. The Baltic coast provides over 500km (300 miles) of sandy beaches, bays, steep cliffs and dunes.

Northern Poland is dominated by lakes, islands and wooded hills joined by many rivers and canals. The Malsurian Lake District to the northeast is a patchwork of lakes and forests with Lake Hancza, the deepest lake in Poland, located here. The River Vistula (Wisla) has cut a wide valley from Gdansk on the Baltic coast to Warsaw in the heart of the country.

The rest of the country rises slowly to the Sudety Mountains, which run along the border with the Czech Republic, and the Tatra mountains, which separate Poland from the Slovak Republic. To the west, the River Oder, with Szczecin at its mouth, forms the northwest border with Germany.