Experience the best of Oświęcim

Oświęcim lies in southern Poland, west of Kraków, where the Soła river joins the Vistula, and its small centre has a market square, an old castle and a church. The town is known across the world as the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps, where more than a million people, most of them Jews, were murdered during the Second World War. The preserved site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a memorial museum.

In town, the Auschwitz Jewish Center and the restored synagogue next to it recall the community that made up more than half of the town's population before the war. Wadowice, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II, is less than thirty kilometres to the south-east, and the Beskid hills begin to the south. Kraków lies about fifty kilometres to the east.

Carp from the ponds around Zator, a short way to the east, is the traditional Christmas dish of the district, and Wadowice has its own cream cake, the kremówka. The Soła flows past the castle, and the town's riverside walks and gardens are calm. Winters here are cold.