Rura Park

more Located on the eastern fringe of the Park of Recreation & Culture you'll find what is apparently the largest kids' playpen in Poland. Designed for ages 3 to 12, this indoor rumpus castle is full of ball pits, slides, labyrinths, building blocks and more.
[Katowice]

Upper Silesian Ethnographic Park

more A welcome departure from the industrial monuments route, this fantastic open-air folk park presents rural Silesian life through its aged architectural monuments. Since the late 60s, Chorzow 'skansen' has been rescuing endangered or forgotten Silesian structures by hoisting them up and dropping them in this makeshift village laid out over 20 hectares of idyllic countryside.
[Katowice]

Silesian Zoological Garden

more Silesian Zoological Garden is a zoological garden in Poland. It was founded in 1954 and is situated in the Katowice and Chorzow districts of Silesia. It covers over 47.6 ha within the Silesian Central Park. The Silesian zoo is a home for about 2 500 animals of 300 species. It is visited by over 390 000 people annually.[Katowice]

Silesian Amusement Park

more Silesian Amusement Park was opened in 1959,  in the center of the Metropolitan Association of Upper Silesia (cities of Chorzow and Katowice) in Silesia. It has an area of 26 ha. In 2008, it has been visited by 253 000 patrons. It is the largest permanent amusement park in Poland.  If you're a fan of old amusement parks like Vienna's Prater, you'll get a kick out of this product of a bygone era which features some rides and amusements that literally date back to 50 years ago, among them a drenching water ride, haunted house ride and a couple twirling whirligig rides.[Katowice]

The Voivodship Park of Culture and Recreation

more The Voivodship Park of Culture and Recreation is a recreation complex located in the center of the Metropolitan Association of Upper Silesia (cities of Chorzow and Katowice) in Silesia. It was founded in the 1960s from the initiative of a local politician Jerzy Zietek, to become a sports, arts, and recreation community center. It is the largest city park of this type in Europe. It covers 620 hectares of land. In addition to the extensive green area, there are many facilities located within the park: Silesian Amusement Park, 'Fala' swimming pool complex, Silesian Zoological Garden, Planetarium, Upper Silesia Ethnographic Park, Silesian Stadium, 'Palenisko" Rope Park, Paintball Park, Kapelusz' Exhibition Hall, Silesian Sculpture Gallery, Narrow - gauge Railroad, Yachting Port, bicycle paths, Rosarium, tennis courts and many more.[Katowice]

Silesian Planetarium

more The Silesian Planetarium also Silesian Planetarium and Astronomical Observatory is the largest and oldest planetarium in Poland. It was founded on 4 December 1955 to commemorate the great astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. It is located in the Silesian Central Park, on the boundary between the Katowice and Chorzow districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union.
[Katowice]

Silesian Parliament

more The eastern part of Upper Silesia became part of the Second Polish Republic following the Silesian Uprisings throughout the Upper Silesian region between 1918 and 1921, and Upper Silesia Plebiscite. The land was subsequently divided by an allied commission and the League of Nations, leaving Katowice region on the Polish side. Together with Cieszyn Silesia it formed Silesian Voievodeship with significant autonomy (Silesian Parliament as a constituency and Silesian Voivodship Council as the executive body).[Katowice]

Gliwice Palm House

more The history of the Palm House dates back to 1880 when a private conservatory of greenhouses was first built. Gradually transformed to house exotic non-native flora, the Palm House was made public and had already become a popular and widely marketed tourist attraction by the 1930s. The complex featured a 120 cubic metre heated pool – the first in Silesia – and was filled with water lillies, a high water mark for exotica at the time. A zoo was also added, featuring cold-blooded reptiles like alligators and anacondas, as well as red-bottomed baboons.[Katowice]

Market Square

more One could easily be forgiven for standing in the middle of the Rynek (Market square) and trying to find the Rynek (Market square). Simply put, it's not your typical idea of a Polish market square. What's today little more than a tram stop selling flowers started life in the mid-19th century as Marktplatz, on the road between Myslowice and Chorzow.[Katowice]

Street skyscraper

more In 1929, in Katowice, at Wigury Street, in 1915 started to build the highest skyscraper in Poland. Designers were the designer and architect Stefan Bryla Mieczyslaw Kozlowski. After five years of sustained construction and finally in the year 1934 skyscraper completed. He was 62 meters and had 17 floors, including 3 underground levels.
[Katowice]

Cathedral of Christ the King

more Some 800 meters south of the Marketplace is the Cathedral of Christ the King, Poland’s largest cathedral, measuring 89 meters by 53 meters. The massive sandstone structure was erected between 1927 and 1955. The spacious interior is topped with a large dome rising 59 meters from the floor, but apart from colourful stained-glass windows and an unusual ‘wheel’ crucifix it’s fairly plain.[Katowice]

Church of St. Michael

more The church of St. Michael Archangel was first built in 1305 in Syrynia, near Wodzisław Slaski. At that time it had a defensive purpose - it was used by the people living in the village as a place where they could hide in, in a case of an attack. The free-standing bell tower was used as a watch tower. The church, in the form and size it is now, was built in 1510. In the 17th century a new free standing tower was built but it was replaced by the present one in 1853. In 1913 the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, visited the church and, reportedly, admired the beauty of the church very much.[Katowice]

Parachute Tower in Kosciuszko Park

more Parachute tower in Kosciuszko Park is a monument and a symbol of the city. It is currently the only existing tower parachute in Poland. The tower was built in 1937 on the initiative of the League and the Air Defence-proof. In the 40s XX century, the German authorities decided to dismantle the tower Katowice. After the war, in the 50s XX century the tower was rebuilt. The current design consists of 35 meters. The project was carried out in the tower of Technical Office Building Bridges in Chorzow. The steel frame of the tower was 50 meters tall. At its peak led the stairs, inside the structure was a lift shaft, which ran a double electric lift.[Katowice]

Silesian Library

more Poland's oldest library in Upper Silesia, was built between 1922 – 1923. In 1998 opened one of the best equipped in Europe, the most modern in Poland a new building of the Silesian Library. The Library has in its collection of more than 1.8 million. volumes. They are printed documents (books, pamphlets, magazines and other periodicals), manuscripts (manuscripts, typescripts), cartographic materials (maps, charts, atlases), iconographic materials (graphics, photography, postcards, bookplates), audiovisual documents (CD Analog Compact and audio cassettes), documents of social life (RDA s) and electronic media (floppy disks and CD-ROMs).[Katowice]

Marshal Jozef Pilsudski Monument

more Monument to Marshal Jozef Pilsudski is set facing the building of the Regional Office of Silesia in Katowice. Monument presents marshal sitting on a horse. The author of the monument is a Croatian sculptor Antun Augustincic who carved such standing in the gardens of the UN in New York's Statue of Peace.[Katowice]

Silesian Insurgents Monument in Katowice

more Silesian Insurgents Monument is located in Katowice, near Rondo Gen. George Zietka, Wojciech Korfantego Avenue, next to the Enterprise and Entertainment and Sports Spodek. It is the largest and heaviest statue in Poland, built to commemorate the three Silesian uprisings against the Poles, armed to the German authorities of Upper Silesia. Silesian uprisings in the years 1919, 1920, 1921, symbolize the three eagles' wings flapping.
[Katowice]

Spodek

more Spodek is a multipurpose arena complex in Katowice, opened in 1971 at 35 Korfanty Street under the name Voivodeship Sport and Show Arena in Katowice, under which it is known in the Polish technical/architectural literature, and under which it formally functioned until 1997. Aside from the main dome, the complex includes a gym, an ice rink, a hotel and three large car parks. It is the largest indoor venue of its kind in Poland. It hosts many important cultural and business events. Music concerts are especially common non-sport events. Spodek can hold 11,500 people, although this number is in practice limited to 10,000 or even 8,000 due to stage set-ups obscuring the view.
[Katowice]

Giszowiec

more Giszowiec is an eastern district of the city of Katowice, created as a coal miners' settlement in 1907. Initially consisting of about 3,300 miners and their families, the district's population have grown over the years to over 18,000. Although Giszowiec's architectural originality suffered major damages in 1970s and 1980s due to large scale urbanization, its early unique character can be still felt in the surviving miners' housings, the marketplace, numerous individual buildings and structures, as well as the relatively well preserved general design of a "Garden city".
[Katowice]

Nikiszowiec

more Nikiszowiec is a part of an administrative district Janow-Nikiszowiec of Katowice city. Initially it was coal miners' settlement of Giesche mine built on the land of Gieschewald manor  between 1908–1918 on the mining – metallurgical concern initiative Georg von Giesches Erben. Built between 1908 and 1911 to house plebs from the nearby coal mine, this residential complex just east of Katowice's city centre consists of nine red brick blocks, each centered around a courtyard. Designed by Georg and Emil Zillmann from Charlottenburg this prototype dwelling would have been a socialist planner's paradise, with the community designed to be completely self-sufficient.[Katowice]

Piast's Castle

more Piast Gliwice Castle - Museum of the Piast castle from the fourteenth century building, which was part of a line of medieval fortifications of the city. Housed the city arsenal, a prison farm and a warehouse. The castle owes its present shape, numerous repairs and reconstructions, which took place in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Today the building serves as a museum, whose theme is the history of the earth Gliwice.
[Katowice]

Archdiocese Museum

more Perhaps the sweetest docents in the world guide tours (in Polish) through a fine and surprisingly large collection of Silesian Gothic-era sacral art. There are two galleries, though the first on the bottom floor features temporary, modern exhibits, currently the stained-glass inspired works of Werner Lobos. The main gallery upstairs has the permanent exhibition of wooden sculptures of Madonna, female saints, Christ and others, several restored and original triptychs as well as articles used by churches in the region.[Katowice]

Museum of Mining

more Upper Silesia is known as a huge industrial region and especially as a coalfield. The exploitation of this valuable power engineering raw material for over 200 years caused a sudden development and urbanization of this territory. Zabrze is one of the cities which owes its own civilization promotion to the coal mining. The first mine was built in 1791 and after the II World War the city was determined as the “capital of the Polish mining”. It was not an accident that the first Coal Mining Museum was built in Zabrze in 1981 – firstly it was only one national museum in this branch in Poland and since 1999 as a council institution of the Silesian Voivodeship.
[Katowice]

Katowice Historical Museum

more Katowice Historical Museum is located in a beautiful historic building, built in the years 1908-1909, which was built for wealthy townsmen. The main objective of the museum is to document the traditions and history of the city of Katowice and everyday life. Museum's collections include approximately 100 thousand exhibits, including the very valuable series of 27 pastels by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, are portraits of Eugenia Wyszomirski-Kuznicki, after the war living in Katowice (artist's statue is located next to the museum).[Katowice]

Silesian Museum

more The beginnings of the Silesian Museum go back to 1924 , which is the date of establishing Society of Museum of Silesian Land. The society started to collect objects of cultural and spiritual value created in Silesia. Formally, after the resolution was passed by the Silesian Parliament on the 23rd January 1929, the Silesian Museum was set up and in May the first exhibition opened to the public. The museum pieces were displayed on the fifth floor of the Provincial Office and the Silesian Sejm building.[Katowice]