Kashubian Switzerland

Szwajcaria Kaszubska is the hilly heart of Kashubia, a moraine landscape west of Gdansk with steep wooded slopes, a chain of lakes strung along the Radunia river and hills reaching 329 metres at Wiezyca - the highest point in the whole northern Polish lowland, with a lookout tower on it. The Swiss comparison is nineteenth-century marketing and the relief does not remotely justify it, which everyone knows. What makes the region worth understanding is the Kashubians: a West Slavic people with their own language, recognised in Poland as a regional language since 2005 and taught in schools, with their own literature, embroidery in a fixed seven-colour palette, and snuff-taking as a social ritual. Kartuzy has a Carthusian church with a coffin-shaped roof. The Radunia circle, a chain of nine lakes, is a kayak and cycling route. It is thirty minutes from Gdansk and is a different country.

What you actually see

• A moraine lakeland - steep wooded slopes and lakes strung along the Radunia.
• Wiezyca at 329 metres - the highest point in the northern Polish lowland, with a tower.
• A recognised language - Kashubian, taught in schools and used regionally since 2005.
• The Kartuzy church - a Carthusian foundation with a roof shaped as a coffin.

When to go

May to September. Two days.

Honest expectations

The Swiss comparison is nineteenth-century marketing - the relief is modest. Summer weekends fill the lakes with Gdansk visitors. The tower charges and queues. A car helps; the railway reaches only Kartuzy.

Nearby

Gdansk is east; the Bory Tucholskie are south-west.