The Piast Trail

The Piast Trail is the oldest and one of the most recognisable tourist routes in Poland. It takes you across the lands of historic Greater Poland and parts of Kuyavia and Pałuki (currently fragments of the Province of Greater Poland and Kuyavian-Pomeranian Province). It connects the most important objects and monuments related to the origins of the Polish state, and includes places where you can feel a thousand years of history, experience the atmosphere of life in a medieval borough, and see where Poland began. Every year, over a dozen events that transport their participants back in time are held on the Piast trail.

Two routes form the trail: the one running from north to south (from Wągrowiec to Kalisz) and the other from east to west (Kowal to Lubiń). They intersect in Gniezno, the central point of the whole trail. In all, it contains 33 villages, towns, and cities, situated in two provinces.

The north–south route runs through Pałuki. This section contains, for instance, Wągrowiec with its former Cistercian abbey and its Regional Museum, the Church of St. Nicholas in Tarnowo Pałucki, Żnin and its medieval town route, the ruins of a castle in Wenecja, the reconstructed settlement from the times of the first Piasts in the Archaeological Museum in Biskupin, the statue of Leszek the White in Marcinkowo Górne, and the monument which commemorates the slaying of Leszek the White in Gąsawa. Farther south, the trail leaves the Pałuki region and leads through Gniezno, Kłecko, Grzybowo, Giecz, Pyzdry, Ląd nad Wartą and Konin to Kalisz.