Unless you're driving to Poland, you're likely to begin your travels with one of the three major cities : Warsaw, Krakow or Gdansk. Each provides an immediate immersion in the fast-paced changes of the last decade or so and a backdrop of monuments that reveal the twists and turns of the nation's history. Warsaw , the capital, had to be rebuilt from scratch after World War II, and much of the city conforms to the stereotype of Eastern European greyness, but the reconstructed Baroque palaces, churches and public buildings of the historic centre, the burgeoning street markets and the bright shopfronts of Poland's new enterprise culture are diverting enough. Krakow , however, the ancient royal capital, is the real crowd puller for Poles and foreign visitors alike, rivalling the central European elegance of Prague and Vienna. This is the city where history hits you most powerfully, in the royal Wawel complex, in the fabulous open space of the Rynek, in the one-time Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, and in the chilling necropolis of nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau, the bloodiest killing field of the Third Reich. Gdansk , formerly Danzig, the largest of the Baltic ports and home of the legendary shipyards, presents a dynamic brew of politics and commerce against a townscape reminiscent of mercantile towns in the Netherlands.

German and Prussian influences abound in the north of the country, most notably in the austere castles and fortified settlements constructed by the Teutonic Knights at Malbork, Chelmno and other strategic points along the River Wisla - as the Vistula is known in Poland. Torun is one of the most atmospheric and beautiful of the old Hanseatic towns here.

Over in the east , numerous minority communities embody the complexities of national boundaries in central Europe. The one-time Jewish centre of Bialystok , with its Belarusian minority, is a springboard for the eastern borderlands, where onion-domed Orthodox churches stand close to Tatar mosques. Further south, beyond Lublin , a famous centre of Hassidic Jewry, and Zamosc , with its magnificent Renaissance centre, lie the homelands of Ukrainians, Lemks and Boyks - and a chance to see some of Poland's extraordinary wooden churches.

In the west , ethnic Germans populate regions of the divided province of Silesia , where Wroclaw sustains the dual cultures of the former German city of Breslau and the Ukrainian city of L'viv, whose displaced citizens were moved here at the end of World War II. The other main city in western Poland is the quintessentially Polish Poznan , a vibrant and increasingly prosperous university town.

Despite its much-publicized pollution problems - problems it is now finally making a serious attempt to address - Poland has many regions of unspoilt natural beauty, of which none is more pristine than the Bialowieza Forest , straddling the Belarusian border; the last virgin forest of the European mainland, it is the habitat of the largest surviving herd of European bison. Along the southern borders of the country lie the wild Bieszczady mountains and the alpine Tatras and further west, the bleak Karkonosze mountains - all of them excellent walking country, interspersed with less demanding terrain. North of the central Polish plain, the wooded lakelands of Mazury and Pomerania are as tranquil as any lowland region on the continent, while the Baltic coast can boast not just the domesticated pleasures of its beach resorts, but also the extraordinary desert-like dunes of the Slowinski national park - one of a dozen such parks.