When a park won't cut it, the mountains south of the city make a full day out. Kids get chairlifts, sandstone mazes and a summit with a flying-saucer observatory, and the towns below add museums for wet days and a Wild West show. Here's what we checked, from the Kopa chairlift up Śnieżka to the rock crevices of Szczeliniec Wielki.
The Zbyszek chairlift is a 2,278-meter ride on four-seat chairs from Karpacz to the top of Kopa, taking about eight minutes, with views over the Karkonosze and the Jelenia Góra valley.
From the top station, a paved black trail climbs to Śnieżka (1,603 m), the range's highest peak, in a little over an hour, passing the old Dom Śląski mountain hut about halfway.
Two rock labyrinths on the sandstone plateau of the Table Mountains (Góry Stołowe), the flat-topped range by the Czech border. Szczeliniec Wielki climbs about 680 stone steps from Karłów to viewing terraces, the 919 m summit and Piekiełko, the deepest crevice open to visitors.
Błędne Skały is an hour-long boardwalk route through a maze of towering rocks, with passages that narrow to a squeeze in places.
A 12th-century Norwegian stave church, built without a single nail, that was taken apart in Norway, shipped across Europe and rebuilt in the Karkonosze mountains in 1844.
Kids can hunt for the carved dragons and lions on the wooden portals and find the runes the original carver cut as his signature. Outside, a stone bell tower and an old cemetery sit on a terrace with mountain views.
An outdoor park of castles, palaces, monasteries and town halls from Lower Silesia, rebuilt at 1:25 scale among flower beds, ponds and wicker sculptures. When it was built, its Krkonoše model was the largest miniature mountain range in Europe.
A guide walks each group through, telling local legends such as the tale of the cruel lady of Chojnik Castle. The visit also takes in the workshop where the models are made.
A toy museum in Karpacz's restored old railway station, built from the collection of Henryk Tomaszewski, the mime who founded the Wrocław Pantomime Theater. The ground floor holds about 300 years of toys from Poland and as far as Japan, Mexico and Australia: porcelain dolls, teddy bears and nativity figures in hand-painted cases. Upstairs are changing exhibitions, and a railway room has a 3-meter freight wagon and model trains.
Western City is a Wild West town near Karpacz, in the Jelenia Góra region, billed by its owners as the only theme park of its kind in Poland. Costumed performers run shows through the day: a gunslinger demo, duels, a Native American dance, a hobby horse contest and a staged bank robbery.
Horses are at the heart of it, with riding lessons on site and sleigh rides in snowy winters.
Ślęża is a 718 m forested peak rising alone above the plain south-west of Wrocław, protected as a nature reserve. From Tąpadła Pass, the yellow trail is the shortest and easiest way up, 3.1 km to the top.
The summit has a stone church with a viewing balcony, a 12 m lookout tower, an ancient granite bear sculpture and the Dom Turysty hut. On clear days the views reach the Owl Mountains.
Paper is still made by hand in this centuries-old mill: papermakers dip sieves into a vat of pulp and press each sheet, using a method known since the Middle Ages. Kids can join a workshop and make their own sheet, decorated with flowers, to take home.
The visit also covers two thousand years of paper history, painted rooms and an exhibition of Polish paper money.
Zieleniec is the largest ski area in the Kłodzko Valley, sitting at about 950 meters in the Orlickie Mountains. One SKI-PASS covers 31 lifts, including 7 chairlifts and several conveyor carpets for first-timers, and the runs link up so you can ski from one end of Zieleniec to the other without taking skis off.
About 16 km of runs are floodlit for evening skiing.
When a park won't cut it, the mountains south of the city make a full day out. Kids get chairlifts, sandstone mazes and a summit with a flying-saucer observatory, and the towns below add museums for wet days and a Wild West show. Here's what we checked, from the Kopa chairlift up Śnieżka to the rock crevices of Szczeliniec Wielki.
The Zbyszek chairlift is a 2,278-meter ride on four-seat chairs from Karpacz to the top of Kopa, taking about eight minutes, with views over the Karkonosze and the Jelenia Góra valley.
From the top station, a paved black trail climbs to Śnieżka (1,603 m), the range's highest peak, in a little over an hour, passing the old Dom Śląski mountain hut about halfway.
Two rock labyrinths on the sandstone plateau of the Table Mountains (Góry Stołowe), the flat-topped range by the Czech border. Szczeliniec Wielki climbs about 680 stone steps from Karłów to viewing terraces, the 919 m summit and Piekiełko, the deepest crevice open to visitors.
Błędne Skały is an hour-long boardwalk route through a maze of towering rocks, with passages that narrow to a squeeze in places.
A 12th-century Norwegian stave church, built without a single nail, that was taken apart in Norway, shipped across Europe and rebuilt in the Karkonosze mountains in 1844.
Kids can hunt for the carved dragons and lions on the wooden portals and find the runes the original carver cut as his signature. Outside, a stone bell tower and an old cemetery sit on a terrace with mountain views.
An outdoor park of castles, palaces, monasteries and town halls from Lower Silesia, rebuilt at 1:25 scale among flower beds, ponds and wicker sculptures. When it was built, its Krkonoše model was the largest miniature mountain range in Europe.
A guide walks each group through, telling local legends such as the tale of the cruel lady of Chojnik Castle. The visit also takes in the workshop where the models are made.
A toy museum in Karpacz's restored old railway station, built from the collection of Henryk Tomaszewski, the mime who founded the Wrocław Pantomime Theater. The ground floor holds about 300 years of toys from Poland and as far as Japan, Mexico and Australia: porcelain dolls, teddy bears and nativity figures in hand-painted cases. Upstairs are changing exhibitions, and a railway room has a 3-meter freight wagon and model trains.
Western City is a Wild West town near Karpacz, in the Jelenia Góra region, billed by its owners as the only theme park of its kind in Poland. Costumed performers run shows through the day: a gunslinger demo, duels, a Native American dance, a hobby horse contest and a staged bank robbery.
Horses are at the heart of it, with riding lessons on site and sleigh rides in snowy winters.
Ślęża is a 718 m forested peak rising alone above the plain south-west of Wrocław, protected as a nature reserve. From Tąpadła Pass, the yellow trail is the shortest and easiest way up, 3.1 km to the top.
The summit has a stone church with a viewing balcony, a 12 m lookout tower, an ancient granite bear sculpture and the Dom Turysty hut. On clear days the views reach the Owl Mountains.
Paper is still made by hand in this centuries-old mill: papermakers dip sieves into a vat of pulp and press each sheet, using a method known since the Middle Ages. Kids can join a workshop and make their own sheet, decorated with flowers, to take home.
The visit also covers two thousand years of paper history, painted rooms and an exhibition of Polish paper money.
Zieleniec is the largest ski area in the Kłodzko Valley, sitting at about 950 meters in the Orlickie Mountains. One SKI-PASS covers 31 lifts, including 7 chairlifts and several conveyor carpets for first-timers, and the runs link up so you can ski from one end of Zieleniec to the other without taking skis off.
About 16 km of runs are floodlit for evening skiing.
