Stroll the white sand beaches of the Baltic coast, hike the trails of the spectacular Tatra Mountains and explore historic city centres from Krakow to Warsaw.Whether you're here for urban pleasures or in pursuit of nature, this inspiring guide will help you connect with Poland in all its guises.

In Poland, the past is not another country - in fact, it's just along the road. Although Poland has emerged from the grim, grey decades of communism to rebuild itself as a proud and independent member of the New Europe, there are few places where history feels as close as it does here.

Only a few hours' drive from Krakow's bustling, medieval market square or the gleamingskyscrapers and gourmet restaurants of Warsaw's new financial district you can still find rurallandscapes of wooden cottages and narrow fields, roadside shrines bedecked with flowers,and storks' nests perched on telegraph poles. Here, the fields are turned by horse-drawnplough, the hay is cut and stacked by hand, and families dressed in their Sunday best craminto tiny, 16th-century timber churches.

And the Polish landscape, as vast and varied as the thousand years of history that haveunrolled across it, still offers a range of timeless sights for the patient traveller prepared toventure off the beaten track-a white-tailed eagle soaring the updraughts above Showirinski'sshifting sand dunes; a summer sunset gilding the serrated, snow-patched peaks of theTatra Mountains; a canoeist trailing a wake through the early morning mists that curl overa tree-fringed Masurian lake; and shaggy-shouldered bison snorting plumes of vapour intothe crisp December air of the Biatowieza Forest.

Highlights

Getting Started

Itineraries

The Authors

Snapshot

History

The Culture

Environment

Food & Drink

Warsaw

Mazovia & Podlasie

Krakow

Malopolska

The Carpathian

Mountains

Silesia

Wielkopolska

Pomerania

Warmia & Masuria

Directory

Transport

Health

World Time Zones

Language

Glossary

Behind the Scenes

Index

Legend