Warmia-Masuria
Discover Warmia-Masuria
Introduction
Warmia-Masuria is Poland’s lake district: more than two thousand lakes left behind by the retreating ice sheet, joined by rivers and canals into a network you can sail across for days. It is the emptiest province in the country and the one Poles themselves go to in August.
The Great Masurian Lakes in the east are the centre of it, with Śniardwy and Mamry the largest, and towns like Giżycko and Mikołajki full of yachts through the short season. The Elbląg Canal to the west solves a height difference in a way found almost nowhere else: boats are hauled overland on rail-mounted cradles up a series of inclined planes, machinery from the 1860s that still works.
The region was East Prussia until 1945, and it looks it — red-brick Gothic churches, Teutonic castles, and the enormous fortress at Malbork, the largest brick castle in the world by area and a UNESCO World Heritage site, built as the headquarters of the Teutonic Order. Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair bunkers sit in the forest near Kętrzyn. Olsztyn is the regional capital, where Copernicus once administered the cathedral estates. July and August are the season and the lakes are busy; September is quieter and still warm enough.