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Witamy w Polsce

Country

Poland

583 places · 1.262 museums

📷 Cieslak Jürgen · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Top museum cities

Places in Poland

Greater Poland Voivodeship

122 museums

Masovian Voivodeship

168 museums

Lesser Poland Voivodeship

163 museums

Silesian Voivodeship

140 museums

Lower Silesian Voivodeship

102 museums

Pomeranian Voivodeship

93 museums

Podkarpackie Voivodeship

60 museums

Lublin Voivodeship

62 museums

Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship

39 museums

Łódź Voivodeship

64 museums

West Pomeranian Voivodeship

45 museums

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship

39 museums

Podlaskie Voivodeship

35 museums

Lubusz Voivodeship

26 museums

Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship

71 museums

Opole Voivodeship

24 museums

★ Has its own city story

museumtickets.com guide · Poland

Welcome to Poland

A royal city on the Vistula, a capital rebuilt from ruins, Copernicus, Chopin and Marie Curie.

Poland is a large country between the Baltic Sea and the Tatra mountains, with a thousand years of history full of kings, uprisings and rebirths. It wrote Europe's first modern constitution, gave the world Copernicus, Chopin and Marie Curie, and began the peaceful end of communism in a Gdańsk shipyard. Visit the Wawel castle in Kraków, see Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, and learn the story of Polish Jews at POLIN in Warsaw. Plan your museum days on museumtickets.com, then eat pierogi and a warm pączek.

  • 966Mieszko I is baptised, the start of the Polish state
  • 1791the Constitution of 3 May, the first modern constitution in Europe
  • 1980the Solidarity movement is born in the Gdańsk shipyard
  • 2004Poland joins the European Union

Poland through the ages

Kings, partitions, war and freedom.

  1. 966

    The baptism of Poland

    Duke Mieszko I accepts Christianity; Poland enters European history.

    See it at: Museum of the History of Poland
  2. 1543

    Copernicus

    Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Toruń, publishes that the Earth goes around the Sun.

    See it at: Nicolaus Copernicus House
  3. 1795

    Partitions

    Russia, Prussia and Austria divide Poland; it disappears from the map for 123 years.

    See it at: Museum of the History of Poland
  4. 1918

    Independence

    Poland is reborn as a free state on 11 November 1918.

    See it at: Józef Piłsudski Museum
  5. 1944

    The Warsaw Uprising

    Warsaw rises against the German occupiers and fights for 63 days; the city is then destroyed.

    See it at: Warsaw Rising Museum
  6. 1980

    Solidarity

    Strikes in Gdańsk create Solidarity, the first free trade union in the Soviet bloc.

    See it at: European Solidarity Centre

Women who shaped Poland

A scientist, a rescuer of children and a crane operator who started a strike.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie

Born in Warsaw in 1867; the first person to win two Nobel prizes, for physics and chemistry.

See it at: Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum
Irena Sendler

A social worker who smuggled about 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and hid their names in jars.

See it at: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Anna Walentynowicz

A crane operator whose dismissal in 1980 sparked the strike that created Solidarity.

See it at: European Solidarity Centre

Artists to look for in Poland

From a giant carved altar to the colours of Young Poland.

Veit Stoss

Sculptor of the great carved altarpiece of St Mary's Basilica in Kraków, finished in 1489.

Jan Matejko

Painter of huge scenes of Polish history, such as the Battle of Grunwald.

Stanisław Wyspiański

Painter, playwright and designer of glowing stained-glass windows in Kraków.

Olga Boznańska

Portrait painter of soft, misty colours who worked in Paris.

Fryderyk Chopin

The composer; his heart rests in a church in Warsaw and a museum is dedicated to him.

Taste Poland

Dumplings, sour soup and smoked mountain cheese.

Pierogi

Dumplings filled with potato and cheese, cabbage and mushroom, meat or summer fruit.

Żurek

A sour soup of fermented rye with sausage and egg, sometimes served in a bread bowl.

Bigos

Hunter's stew of sauerkraut, cabbage and meats, better each day it is reheated.

Oscypek

Smoked sheep's cheese from the Tatra mountains, pressed in carved wooden moulds.

Pączki

Round doughnuts with rose jam, eaten in huge numbers on Fat Thursday.

Traditions and festivals through the year

Doughnuts, water fights, candles on graves and an empty plate.

Fat Thursday – before Lent

Everyone eats pączki; bakeries have queues from early morning.

Śmigus-dyngus – Easter Monday

A day of water fights in the streets, after baskets of food are blessed on Holy Saturday.

Wianki – midsummer

Girls float wreaths of flowers on the rivers on the shortest night.

All Saints' Day – 1 November

Families light candles on graves; cemeteries glow at night.

Wigilia – Christmas Eve

Dinner begins at the first star, with twelve dishes and an empty place for an unexpected guest.

Hidden story

The empty plate

Every Christmas Eve, Polish families set one place too many.

Read the storyClose

At Wigilia, the Christmas Eve supper, families set an extra plate at the table for a lost traveller or a stranger who might knock at the door. Before eating, everyone shares the opłatek, a thin wafer, and wishes each other well. Hay is often put under the tablecloth, to remember the stable in Bethlehem.

Tips for art lovers

Trains

Fast trains link Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław and Poznań.

Free days

Many museums have one free day a week; it can be busy.

Memorial sites

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, book a guided visit and plan a full, quiet day.

Closed days

Many museums close on Mondays.

Poland: plan your visit with museumtickets.com

On museumtickets.com: 1.262 museums with photos, the way there and the museums nearby. Save your favourites in the free Culture Passport and, where the museum offers it, pay your admission in advance.

Getting there

Getting to Poland

From the airport to the city centre by public transport, then the trains and local lines to the museums.

Arriving by plane

WAW
Warsaw ChopinWarsaw · Warszawa
KRK
Kraków John Paul IIKraków · Krakow · Wieliczka · Oświęcim

Getting around Poland

Lines and timetables change. Check the operator’s website before you travel.

On the map