Natural assets of Piła and surroundings encourage people to go in for active forms of tourism. The most picturesque places are beautiful pine forests in any season, lakes and rivers nearby, numerous parks in the town, boulevards by the river, and the island of scenic beauty at the river Gwda bend.
The tourist attractions of the town and surroundings enable people to organize trips to many places. Beautiful pine forests offer unusual variety of fauna and flora. Numerous attractions and the beauty of unpolluted landscape guarantee successful rest. Broadleaved forests abound in game and fruits of the forest. Great lovers of nature with cameras or video cameras take a peek at and register nature curiosities.
The enthusiasts of active leisure pursuits should not be bored. There are several lakes within the boundaries of the town. Płotki Lake, the biggest one, is the traditional place of active leisure of the residents and holiday-makers. The clean water, the tourist accommodation, the nice beaches, the rental of water sports equipment, the forest nearby make it famous and liked not only by the residents of the town but also by tourists.
There is a phenomenon within the boundaries of the town, The Nature Reserve Kuźnik, the oldest, protected since 1959, with forests and lakes, meadows and marsh. It makes the perfect conditions for the development of numerous species of plants and over thirty species of rare birds.
The clean rivers and lakes are willingly visited places by anglers, sailors, and windsurfing lovers. There are proper conditions for active leisure, peace, and plenty of fish.
We highly recommend canoeing in the rapid current rivers through the valleys and forests to the enthusiasts of this sport. Its charm was appreciated by the pope John Paul II, who rested and went canoeing here in 1978. The trail has been named after him since 1993.
You can recuperate yourself here using indoor swimming pools, tennis courts, fitness clubs, and the lovers of extreme sports can try themselves learning parachuting, paragliding, or gliding to admire the landscape having a bird’s-eye view. The town has a diversity of accommodation and places to eat, well equipped conference rooms for business tourism.
Piła – the biggest town of the region – is also the centre of the cultural life. Cultural and sports events attract many people interested in this sphere of life. In the town with the history dated back to the XV century you cannot find many historical buildings or the Old Town because it was destroyed repeatedly by the fires and wars. But there are places definitely worth visiting. These are preserved churches: the neo-Gothic St Stanisław Kostka’s church from the end of the XIX century, the neo-Baroque Holy Family church on the west river Gwda bank, and with an interesting architecture the St Antoni Padewski’s church. It is worth strolling along few streets with the old buildings to look at the historic tenements from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the stately buildings of the former governmental district at the Stanisław Staszic Square. Visiting the Stanisław Staszic’s house, which is the Museum of Stanisław Staszic now, is a must.
The sanctuaries of Our Lady of Skrzatusz and of Górka Klasztorna are worth visiting too. The open-air ethnographic Museum of Folk Culture in Osiek on the river Noteć, the second in terms of size, reminds the visitors of the vestige of the past and invites to take part in many outdoor events presenting traditional farm work among others.
