Museums in Poland
Archaeological Museum
The Archaeological museum is situated in a complex of buildings by the Motława River. It contains an extensive collection describing the Polish cultural and ethnic roots of the region.
Founded: |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Warsaw Uprising Museum
The Warsaw Uprising Museum is dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The institution of the Museum was established in 1983, but no construction work took place for many years, and the museum finally opened on July 31, 2004, marking the 60th anniversary of the Uprising. The Museum sponsors research into the history of the Uprising, and the history and possessions of the Polish Underground State. It collects and maintai ...
Founded: 1983 |
Location:
Warsaw, Poland
SS Soldek
SS Sołdek was a Polish coal and ore freighter. She was the first ship built in Poland after World War II and the first seagoing ship completed in Poland. She was the first of 29 ships classed as Project B30, built between 1949 and 1954 in Stocznia Gdańska (Gdańsk Shipyard). The name was given in honour of Stanisław Sołdek, one of the shipyard's shock workers. The ship is currently preserved as a museum ship in Gdańs ...
Founded: 1949-1954 |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Central Maritime Museum
The history of the museum dates back to 1960 when the Pomeranian Museum (now the National Museum) set up an independent branch under the name “Maritime Department”. Two years later this department became a separate institution based in the famous Zuraw Crane in Gdansk. The museum then took over several barns on Olowianka Island. Apart from these and the Wielki Zuraw Crane the other divisions are the Fisheries Museum i ...
Founded: 1960 |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Amber Museum
Housed in Gdańsk’s medieval Foregate building (once home to the Prison Tower and Torture Chamber), this multi-story exhibit delves extensively into the history of Baltic amber. The impressive collection of “inclusions” (when bugs or plants are caught inside the amber) is intriguing to look at, and the many amber creations, from inkwells to spoons to a stunning Fender Stratocaster guitar, shows the m ...
Founded: |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Warsaw National Museum
The National Museum in Warsaw was originally founded in 1862 as the Museum of Fine Arts and is currently one of the oldest art museums in the country. After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the National Museum was ascribed a prominent role in the plans for the new state and its capital city of Warsaw, and the Modernist building in which it currently resides was erected in 1927–1938. Today, the National Muse ...
Founded: 1862 |
Location:
Warsaw, Poland
ORP Blyskawica
ORP Błyskawica is a Grom-class destroyer which served in the Polish Navy during World War II and is the only ship of the Polish Navy awarded the Virtuti Militari medal. It is preserved as a museum ship in Gdynia, the oldest preserved destroyer in the world. It was the second of two Grom-class destroyers, built for the Polish Navy by J. Samuel White, Cowes in 1935–37. The name means Lightning. The two Groms were ...
Founded: 1935-1937 |
Location:
Gdynia, Poland
Dar Pomorza
Dar Pomorza is a Polish sailing frigate built in 1909 which is preserved in Gdynia as a museum ship. It was built in 1909 by Blohm & Voss and dedicated in 1910 by Deutscher Schulschiff-Verein as the German training ship Prinzess Eitel Friedrich. In 1920, following World War I, the ship was taken as war-reparations by Great Britain, then brought to France, where she was assigned to the seamen"s school at St-Nazair ...
Founded: 1909 |
Location:
Gdynia, Poland
Ethnographic Museum
Located inside the 18th-century Abbatial Granary inside Oliwa Park, this delightful little diversion features three floors showcasing all manner of folk-related artifacts from Eastern Pomerania and is considered to be one of the best collections of its kind in Poland. Exhibits include a wide range of folk art from wood carvings to some really amazing paintings made between the 18th and the early 20th century as well as fo ...
Founded: |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Naval Museum
The Naval Museum of Gdynia is focused on the history of the Polish navy history. The museum contains a huge collection (20.000 pieces) of weapons used by the Polish navy. Show-piece is currently the ORP Blyskawica, a Polish destroyer used in the Second World War.
Founded: |
Location:
Gdynia, Poland
Roads to Freedom Exhibition
Roads to Freedom Exhibition, opened on the 20th anniversary of the 1980 shipyard strikes, traces the history of the Solidarity movement and Poland's struggle to wriggle out of the grip of communism. The "Roads to Freedom" multimedia exhibit consists of two parts; in the outdoor portion you'll see a section of the Berlin Wall beside the wall Lech Walesa climbed to lead the shipyard workers, an armored tank used to put down ...
Founded: |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
National Museum
The National Museum in Gdańsk (Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku), established in 1972 (although the history goes back the third quarter of 19th century), is one of the main branches of Poland"s National Museum system. Its main location is in the old Franciscan monastery, which has been used to house exhibits since the end of the 19th century. Currently the museum has seven departments. The first floor is given ov ...
Founded: |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Museum of Cieszyn Silesia
The Museum of Cieszyn Silesia is one of the oldest public museums in Central Europe and the oldest public museum in Poland, set up by father Leopold Jan Szersznik in 1802. The building bears traces of Baroque-neoclassical style. The two storey and three wing building is made of brick and broken stone in cellars. The interior design is based on two tracts. On the ground floor there are two arterial hallways: the first one ...
Founded: 1802 |
Location:
Cieszyn, Poland
Biskupin
The archaeological open-air museum Biskupin is a life-size model of an Iron Age fortified settlement in Poland. When first discovered it was thought to be early evidence of Slavic settlement but archaeologists later confirmed it belonged to the Biskupin group of the Lusatian culture. The settlement belongs to the Hallstatt C and D periods (early Iron Age, 800-650 BC and 650-475 BC). In 1933 Polish archaeologists discover ...
Founded: 800-475 BC |
Location:
Żnin, Poland
Guardhouse No 1
WWII broke out here at dawn on 1 September 1939, when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began shelling the Polish guard post. The garrison, which numbered just 182 men, held out for seven days before surrendering. The site is now a memorial, with some of the ruins left as they were after the bombardment. The surviving Guardhouse No 1 houses a small exhibition related to the event, including a model of the battle la ...
Founded: |
Location:
Gdańsk, Poland
Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Photo from Flickr, copyright Riccardo Ravelli
Historic Site of the week
Redipuglia World War I Memorial
Redipuglia is the largest Italian Military Sacrarium. It rises up on the western front of the Monte Sei Busi, which, in the First World War was bitterly fought after because, although it was not very high, from its summit it allowed an ample range of access from the West to the first steps of the Karstic table area.
The monumental staircase on which the remains of one hundred thousand fallen soldiers are lined up and which has at its base the monolith of the Duke of Aosta, who was the commanding officer of the third Brigade, and gives an image of a military grouping in the field of a Great Unity with its Commanding Officer at the front. The mortal remains of 100,187 fallen soldiers lie here, 39,857 of them identified and 60,330 unknown.