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Museum of the Oil & Gas Industry
The village of Bóbrka, 17km southwest of Krosno, is the cradle of the Polish oil industry. It was here in 1854 that the world’s first oil well was sunk by Ignacy Łukasiewicz, inventor of the paraffin lamp. These days, the site is a curious open-air museum. From Krosno several buses
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Smołdzino
West of Kluki, outside the park’s boundaries, Smołdzino boasts a fine Natural History Museum , which features collections of flora and fauna from the park’s various habitats.Just 1km southwest of the village is Mt Rowokół , the highest hill in the area at 115m above sea level. On i
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Water Tower
Across the main road from the cathedral, down in the town, this water tower was built in 1571 making it Europes oldest. It was used for two centuries to provide Cathedral Hill with water through oak pipes – the pumping mechanism was made by none other than composer Handels great gr
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Church of SS Stanislaus and Wenceslas
East of the Rynek, this massive Gothic stone building has a facade adorned with four elegant 15th-century doorways and an 18m-high window (the stained glass is not original). The tower, completed in 1565, is 103m high, making it Poland’s tallest historic church tower after that of
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Royal Private Apartments
This tour lends insight into how the monarchs and their families once lived. You’ll see plenty of magnificent old tapestries, mostly northern French and Flemish, hanging on the walls. The collection was largely assembled by Zygmunt II August (Sigismund II Augustus; 1548–72). Other
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Old Jewish Cemetery
The old Jewish cemetery, established in 1541, has 30-odd readable tombstones, including the oldest Jewish tombstone in Poland in its original location. The graveyard is on a hill between ul Sienna and ul Kalinowszczyzna, about 500m to the northeast of the main bus terminal. It is s
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Kantors Atelier
Even in life it was hard to define Tadeusz Kantor, a master of both performance and visual arts, who blurred the line between genres. Poet, painter, set designer and actor, he delighted and confounded his audiences with his one-man avant-garde extravaganzas. The venue for his perfo
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Jewish Cemetery
Over the centuries, Kazimierz Dolny had a significant Jewish population, and in the decades leading up to WWII as much as half the population was Jewish. While few traces of this community can be seen today, the Jewish Cemetery, outside of the centre, is moving and highly recommend
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Jewish Pogrom Memorial
A small plaque signed by former president Lech Wałęsa identifies the site of a tragic post-WWII pogrom in 1946 committed by Poles against Jews who had survived the Holocaust. The origins of the pogrom are unclear – some believe it was instigated by communist authorities to discredi
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Jewish Museum
This museum is housed in the Old Synagogue, which dates to the 15th century. The prayer hall, complete with a reconstructed bimah (raised platform at the centre where the Torah is read) and the original aron kodesh (the niche in the eastern wall where Torah scrolls are kept), house
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Dominican Priory
Originally a Gothic complex founded by King Kazimierz III Wielki in 1342, the Dominican Priority was rebuilt in Renaissance style after it was ravaged by fire in 1575. Two historic highlights inside the church are the Chapel of the Firlej Family (1615), containing family members’ t
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Sigismund III Vasa Column
A natural spot from which to start exploring the Old Town is triangular Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy). Attracting snap-happy tourists by the hundreds each day is the squares centrepiece, the Sigismund III Vasa Column. This lofty 22m-high monument to the king who moved the capital fr
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Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is housed in a large, finely restored granary from 1591. Though there is little information in English, kids will enjoy seeing the range of birds, animals and insects (albeit stuffed). Of particular interest is the video showing the process of taxidermy (
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Fountain
West of the town hall, opposite the post office, is an intriguing small Fountain built in 1914. Bronze-cast frogs sit on its rim, admiring a statue of a violin-playing boy known as Janko Muzykant, Toruńs very own answer to the Pied Piper story. Legend has it that a witch once came
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Pieskowa Skała Castle
If you can only do one thing in Ojców National Park, visit this 14th-century castle, one of the best-preserved castles in the upland. The castle was rebuilt in the 16th century in imitation of the royal residence of Wawel and now serves as a branch of the Royal Wawel Castle museum,
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Rotunda & Martyrdom Museum
About 500m southwest of the Old Town is the Rotunda – a ring-shaped fort 54m in diameter surrounding a circular yard. The rotunda was built in the 1820s as part of the defensive infrastructure of the town, but during WWII the German SS converted it into an interrogation centre. Som
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Cloth Hall
Dominating the middle of Rynek Główny, this building was once the centre of Kraków’s medieval clothing trade. Created in the early 14th century when a roof was put over two rows of stalls, it was extended into a 108m-long Gothic structure, then rebuilt in Renaissance style after a
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Museum of Zamość
Two Armenian houses shelter the Zamość museum, with intriguing displays such as a scale model of the 16th-century town and a letter to Jan Zamoyski from his architect, Bernardo Morando, with a hand-drawn plan of the square and names of the first occupants of each building. Also on
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Lakes
There are four lakes in the park, two large and two small. They are shallow lagoons that started life as bays and were gradually cut off from the sea by the sandbar. With densely overgrown, almost inaccessible marshy shores, they provide a habitat for about 250 species of birds, wh
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Castle Ruins
The village of Czorsztyn (chor -shtin), across the lake from Niedzica, boasts romantic castle ruins dating from the second half of the 13th century. The fortress was built as the Polish counterpart to the Hungarian stronghold opposite at Niedzica. You see a 15th-century gatehouse,
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