Start at Lublin Castle for the Chapel of the Holy Trinity: 15th-century Byzantine-Ruthenian frescoes under Gothic vaults, and the reason to come. Give the afternoon to the Old Town, the Crown Tribunal, the cellars of the Underground Route and the Grodzka Gate, which stands where the Jewish quarter began. Keep a half day for Majdanek, which is free and inside the city.
Lublin is Poland's eastern capital: a Renaissance old town on a hill, a castle at one end of it, and inside the castle a Gothic chapel painted wall to wall by Ruthenian masters. Majdanek stands four kilometres away, preserved where it was built.
The castle has held the Lublin museum since 1957, but the Chapel of the Holy Trinity is the reason to climb the hill: Gothic ribs over a wall-to-wall Byzantine-Ruthenian fresco cycle, painted in the 15th century and unlike anything else in Poland. See it before the castle collections.
The camp stands inside the city, four kilometres from the Old Town, and survived almost intact: barracks, watchtowers, the gas chambers and the domed mausoleum are where they were built. Admission is free. Allow half a day and read the visiting rules first.
A ring of painted merchant houses around the Crown Tribunal, where the highest appeal court of the Polish Crown sat from 1578. The square is small, it empties once the day trippers leave, and the Underground Route starts beneath it.
A 280 metre walk through cellars dug under the market square from the 16th century onward, joined into one route and fitted with models of the city at each stage. It closes on the great fire of 1719, staged as a moving model with light and sound.
The gate stood between the Christian town and the Jewish quarter, and the quarter is no longer there. Inside, the permanent exhibition Lublin. Memory of the Place rebuilds it from photographs, recorded testimony, street documents and a model of the medieval city.
A former Jesuit church consecrated in 1604, one of the first baroque buildings raised outside Italy, and painted throughout with trompe l'oeil frescoes by the Moravian artist Józef Meyer. The acoustic sacristy is the thing to stay for: the vault carries a whisper from one corner to the other.
Sixty metres of neo-Gothic beside the cathedral, raised to its present height in the 19th century to a design by Antonio Corazzi. The platform at forty metres reads the whole Old Town, the castle and the roofs past it, and the Archdiocesan Museum fills the floors on the way up.
The 14th-century gate is the city's emblem and the way into the Old Town from the modern centre. The Museum of Lublin History occupies its rooms, and the top of the gate gives the view back down Krakowskie Przedmieście.
Twenty-three hectares in the Czechówka valley, laid out as seven sectors of the pre-war Lublin region: cottages, a manor estate and a small-town square with its own shops. One of the largest open-air museums in Poland, and a bus ride from the centre.
Rabbi Meir Shapiro's academy opened in 1930 and drew students from across Europe. The building came through the war, was returned to the Jewish community in 2003 and now holds a restored synagogue, a small museum, a hotel and a restaurant. The prayer hall is the room to see.
The Gestapo's Lublin cells, kept as a museum on ul. Uniwersytecka.
Working letterpress and type, run by the Grodzka Gate centre on ul. Żmigród.
The poet's Lublin, in a townhouse on ul. Złota.
One room on ul. Rybna given over to a single flatbread.
On the Grodzisko hill behind a 17th-century wall, holding Poland's oldest surviving gravestone (1541).
Opened in 1829, rebuilt after the war around a memorial chamber and Meir Shapiro's empty ohel.
A marked route through what is left of Jewish Lublin, mapped by the city's tourist centre.
Twelve hectares laid out in the English style in 1837, with a sundial and a concert shell.
Rosarium, alpinarium and water-plant sections around a Kościuszko family manor.
A 270-hectare reservoir south of the city, with open pools, a water-ski lift and boat hire.
Twenty-two hectares on the Bystrzyca, rebuilt in 2020 with a pump track and a kayak dock.
A Renaissance river town 50 km west, about 70 minutes by bus from the main station.
Chalk workings under the old town, part of a labyrinth over 40 km long. Reached by train.
The region's biggest jazz festival, running in parts across May, July and the turn of August.
One night when the Old Town's institutions, courtyards and cellars all open after dark.
Music and literature from Poland's eastern neighbours, staged around the Old Town.
Four days of street theatre, circus and highwire work over the market square.
A craft fair and folk music festival built on Lublin's old trading role.
A week of cooking from one guest country, served across the Old Town.
Contemporary art installed in public space, on a new theme each year.
Poland's oldest folk music festival, on the second weekend of December at UMCS.
The city's own airport, at Świdnik east of the centre. A railbus runs from the terminal to Lublin Główny in about 16 minutes for 7.80 zł.
Trains reach Warsaw in about two hours and carry on east towards Chełm. The station sits south of the centre, a short bus ride from the Old Town.
Lublin is one of three Polish cities still running trolleybuses: 13 trolleybus lines and 62 bus lines. Buy at a machine, a kiosk or in the app.
Ranks sit at Plac Łokietka and outside the main station. The Old Town and the centre are walkable end to end, so a taxi is mostly for the airport.
Wheat flatbread under diced onion and poppy seed. EU protected since 2014.
Thick stew of meat, smoked sausage and pickled cucumber, sharp with paprika.
Pierogi filled with buckwheat groats and curd cheese, eaten with sour cream.
Baked buckwheat, potato and curd pie from Biłgoraj, once a feast-day dish.
Peasant casserole of groats and curd cheese, still cooked across the region.
Potato and curd dumplings, the default order in any Old Town cellar.
Sour rye soup with white sausage and egg, on every Lublin menu.
Chilled beetroot and soured milk soup, eaten cold through the eastern summer.
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