Is Poland on your bucket list and trying to note all must see in Poland? We are coming with a helpful hand. This won’t be next boring text about polish attractions around Krakow. That you can find anywhere else. We point one attraction for a region (province) of Poland. Just one. Feel invited!

If your dream was to go to Venice but somehow you’re going to Poland, don’t worry. Bydgoszcz is a city on water. Based on rivers, canals and islands is a perfect place to stay in Poland. It’s both natural and urbanized. Perfect match. It’s off the beaten path but all those who decide to arrive here are amazed! Bydgoszcz was listed in finals of the contest for Best European Destination 2020. Already convinced to travel to Bydgoszcz? If yes here you will find an article about what to do in Bydgoszcz.

Travel to Poland and want to discover more than just well known places? The other 11 ideas for Poland day trips you will get in the next article on this blog. In the next article you will doscover the rest of 16 best attractions in Poland to see. Subscribe our newsletter to be sure that you won’t miss that.

List two places that you think of when you think about travel to Poland… Warsaw and Krakow? These are two beautiful cities, which also offer a lot of attractions in their area.

And what if you’ve been to both places? A lot of fantastic, accessible and not very popular places await you all over Poland .. Discover unexplored! Travel to Poland and discover it’s true flavors with us ☺

If you are looking for uncrowded places, close to nature, with the best food and interesting history, you should come to Bydgoszcz and experience Kujavian-Pomeranian region. If you want to fallow motto “Poland undiscovered – go off the beaten path” go with us! In the area you will find beautiful cities with rich history, new flavors, traditional food and surprising dishes. You can sleep in the middle of nowhere in magical places. You can also visit the smallest Vineyard ever!

Below you will find a list of 8 unknown places that you would dream of after reading this! Those are our favorite places and recommendations (we put them in random order because we love all of them the same ☺)

City of legends and legendary city at the same time. City that has the most beautiful and the best preserved medieval downtown in whole Europe! Thats why it is listed on Unesco Heritage list. This is a must see in the region. In Toruń you can literally travel in time and find yourself as a medieval townsfolk.

Torun – must see

During your stay in Toruń you can taste and make yourself a famous Torun gingerbraed. There is a Living Museum of Gingerbread which offers a workshop with making your own gingerbread with great stories about this tasty cookie.

Climb the Torun Town Hall Tower to admire the view of the whole city from different perspective.

All Torun tours you will find here ☺

The town is stretching on the nine hills with view on Vistula river. Chełmno, which is one of the cities of the European Route of Brick Gothic features an old Cistercian-Benedictine monastery and as many as six gothic churches. Chełmno, thanks to the medieval walls and historic sites, is called the “Polish Carcassonne” or the “Little Krakow”.

Chelmno – city of lovers

Usually called “city of lovers”. On the Valentines day tere is a big celebration and festivities. You cannot leave Chełmno without a symbolic kiss on the Bench of Lovers, which is supposed to bring happiness in love. The bench is located in the Nowe Planty city park, next to the city walls, not far from the promenade. It is worth going for a walk around Planty and admire the view and atmosphere.

You can also combine visiting Chełmno with other places. We offer Chełmno and Torun tour. If you prefer natural sites and polish local wine you better choose Chelmno and vineyard tour.

It is absolutely a magical place with stunning view for Lower Vistula Valley.Vistula is a queen of Polish rivers as we Poles call it. This is the longest river in Poland.

Vineyard is only 33 km North from Bydgoszcz so it is a fantastic option for one day tour. You can admire the view while sipping a wine and warm your face in the sun strolling between grapevines.

The polish vineyard Przy Talerzyku refers to the history of Kuyavian-Pomeranian wine growing and monastery tradition of wine making dating back to the beginning of the 13th century.

Wine production from hand-picked and selected fruit. This boutique wine production, in which everything has its own rhythm and the sequence of events is the result of a lifetime passion for creation.

Do you want to see the view from Vineyard? Simply click here.

Kujavian and Pomeranian region has an amazing places to stay overnight. You can choose an agritourism spots. They offer accommodation in a beautiful surroundig but also a very homey atmosphere. Very often those places have some animals like chickens, goats, cows, horses. Usually owners have fruit trees or grow some vegetables. Then hosts offers meals made of their own products. Kids have fun feeding the animals and ta king care about plants. Adults can just relax in the atmosphere of slow life in the harmony with nature.

Frymark is a famous farmers marketwith regional products. Frymark takes place in Bydgoszcz every Sunday in the city center. At the market you can find regional products, both food and handicrafts. Regional and eco-friendly farmers and craftsmen come to the city and sell their products. These include meats, cheeses, cakes, fruit, juice, honey, preserves as well as clothes, jewelry, small home furnishings. Frymark is an absolutely unique place where you can get to know regional food, taste it, take it home with you. Remember the taste and smell of Poland.

Our guides will take you there!

What to do in Inowrocław? Another city in our list of favorite places in the region. Extraordinary city with interesting history and … very salty!

What to do in Inowrocław? Inowrocław has rich deposits of rock salt, which have been mined here since ancient times, hence the term “city on salt”. However, since the closure and flooding of the “Solino” mine, salt has not been mined in the traditional way. The city is a military garrison. In the city, the highly mineralized water “Inowrocławianka”, which is reportedly the most salty drinking water sold in Poland, is being poured. There are also graduation towers in the brine park.

You can visit region in a few days participating the tour ☺

Every year we have two food festivals in Poland which take placenear Bydgoszcz. The Local Food Festival in Gruczno takes place in August and the Plum Festival at the beginning of September. Both festivals are a great opportunity to try Polish food, visit stands with products from organic farms and also to admire the handicrafts.

Are you interested in other food festivals in Poland? Let us know! It’s not the coincidence that our name is Tasty Tours!

Local Food Festival takes place in Gruczno. Just 40 km north from Bydgoszcz. Every year in August over 150 stalls with food and craft is open for two day (always on the Weekend). You can find tere whatever you need and whatever you want to taste. Farmers offer meat, fish, bread, sweets, cakes, preserves, product from milk like cheese, yoghurt and so on. You can find tere also fruits, juices or even whole dishes. Local folk artists offer they art. They sell clothes, jewelry, decorations, tools, pots, home furnishings and many more.

Plum Festival sounds weird but it is two days full of plums ☺ Everything is about plums. Strzelce Dolne is 20 km from Bydgoszcz nearby the Vistula river. This is a real capital of plum for about 200 years. And the unique taste of the jam is due to the growing in the climate of the Lower Vistula Valley “Hungarian plum”, processed by housewives in a variety of ways. All participants of the event can see how frying jam in traditional boilers looks like and taste the old country cuisine. Each participant will be able to experience how much of love the housewives put in pots with real plum jam. You can also find other regional delicacies at the stands, including tinctures – such as the creamer known in Krajna and Pałuki, among others, cold meats are also popular – healthy, because without preservatives. It is worth appearing at the Plum Festival. It is a unique opportunity to look at the process of frying jam, but also to taste honey, cured meat and bread with lard.

Are you curious? See what we offer.

Kujawsko – pomorskie province is totally unknown place on the map of Poland but it doesn’t mean it is not interesting. There are a lot of things to do and to see. The huge advantage is calm atmosphere and real locality! See the website of Kujawsko-Pomorskie region and inspire to discover Poland undiscovered!

Do you plan trip to Poland and wondering what to see here? We have many ideas that you may like!  We know many more places and events with unique character.

Are you interested in travel to Poland? Let us know!

Daria and Aneta

I know you think that Poland is not a big state. I know you dream to come over and meet someone related to you. It would be like a fairy tale. But this does not happen really often. That’s why I want you to keep your expectations in check. Sometimes after the visit Poland you get the impression that you know less than before your travel. I would give you an example which happened to me:

We do walk a lot in Poland. Prepare comfortable shoes and get ready for a longer distances 🙂 We love walking. If you are not able to walk a lot – inform your guide before your arrival. It will give him time to organize your itinerary as convenient as possible. Not all the places such as local archives are well prepared for disabled people.

One of world tourism trends for 2020 is discovering new destinations. Poland is well know of Krakow and Auschwitz. Rest of the state fulfill criteria of being untouched location. They are simply unknown. Every step you take you can find something new. Those are: great food, natural landscapes, interesting monuments, complicated history and famous hospitality. We’ve prepared for you 10 facts about Poland that most people don’t know. We hope you will find them interesting.

Our country is one big surprise. Here are some facts about Poland that surprised even me (and I’m local!).

Name of our state derives from tribe „Polanie” which conquered other Polish tribes. That was in 10th century. The name means exactly: people leaving on the open glades (fields). If we’re talking about country names: we have some quirky names for some countries, like: Włochy for Italy. Even the wisest men do not know why? It is possible that ‘Włochy’ derives from ‘włosy’: hair. So the legend is that long, long time ago one hairy Italian came to Poland. Local folks didn’t know how to name foreigner so they called him ’Hairy Man’ – Ta boom!

But… it was working only 14 months before Poland was in partitions. For next 100 years or more the country was not existing. Polish history is more complicated than Game of Thrones. Once Kingdom of Poland was one of the European powers, 100 years after was not even existing! Kings were great but sometimes also showing their weaknesses as jealousy or greediness. Wars and battles were not helping. Now, in 2020 we celebrate 100 years of our independence from foreign powers.

You can find very odd seeing man bowing down to grab and kiss woman’s hand to say ’Hello’. It is not as frequent as it was 20 years ago. Although it’s still applicable in many situations: Name Day, Women’s Day etc.

Many young women feel strange about it. Some are even shocked (as they call themselves ’feminists’). But don’t worry! To be honest this old custom hides nothing else but kindness.

You pass the magic border between being young and matured. People call you ‘Ms’ instead ‘hey, you’ ? Then you know that’s the moment you should start celebrating your Name Day! You quit showing your birthday cake on Facebook and erase birthdate from profile bio. Only your relatives and best friends celebrate with you this date. For the rest of the world (as your boss and workmates) you bring random cakes and chocolates. You get some hugs and a bottle of wine instead. Your boss gives you flower (just one!) and he kiss your hand (look up!). That’s it! You can ask when this moment comes? Depends on the name. For Maria, Andrzej, Jan and few others who has extremely popular name it comes faster that for the others. Reasonable age is 40.

Oh yes! We drink a lot but we produce even more! We are third biggest exporter of beer in European Union! Producing 36,9 hectoliters of golden liquid we are behind Germany and United Kingdom. Well known Polish brands allover the Europe are: Tyskie beer, Lech beer and Zywiec beer. But … when you come here please do not try them! Those mentioned are huge concerns and their products are simple and low quality ones. If you’re beer lover try local and regional products. Our Tastytours.pl is first DMC that created its own Beerwalk. You can find it and taste it in Bydgoszcz.

More about Beerwalk you’ll find here.

Poland exports high quality amber from Baltic sea. Most of the people do not know that name ‘amber‘ is restricted only for product from Baltic sea! Amber is so called ‘Gold of the North‘ and it’s well know from ancient times. What is an amber? That’s fossilized resin that is 40 milion years old. Resin was as a plaster on injured trees (by borers or birds).

As pierogi is most popular polish dish, ‘Zapiekanka‘ is simple comfort food. What is ’zapiekanka’? It was very popular during the times of Peoples Republic of Poland. ‘Zapiekanka’ is half baguette topped with cheese and mushrooms. You get in on paper tray and you will be asked if you want it with ketchup or garlic mayo (my recommendation is to choose ketchup!).

There are many examples of well known inventors who are Poles.

Among them Maria Curie Sklodowska, the only one in the world who won two Noble Prizes in two different science disciplines.

Other polish invention was latex condom (!) produced for the first time by Julius Fromm in 1912.

Last name works as adjective and need to match gender in Polish. If it is woman the ending is – ska (ex. Kowalska). For man it is – ski (ex. Kowalski). But there is an exception: most of the Poles in US convert their surname to male version not to confuse the others.

Did you like the 10 facts about Poland that most people don’t know? Would you like to get more posts like this? We have at least 100 more facts and curiosities to surprise you! You can also subscribe to our newsletter.

Maybe we missed some Poland facts? Let us know in comment!

Check out the website of Polish Tourism Organisation and inspire yourself to explore Poland!