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Treasures on the Trail Castles
Churches and synagogues
Open-air museums
Castles
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Jousting tournament, Gołub-Dobrzyń |
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Apart from showing the natural environment, Poland's tourist routes also present the country's cultural and historic sights: mediaeval castles, Baroque palaces, stately homes, places of worship for the various religions and denominations, open-air museums of folk culture, and mysterious prehistoric sites.
In the north of the country, there are castles that were built in the 13th and 14th centuries by the Teutonic Knights, the most famous being the fortress in Malbork. These enormous regular-shaped fortifications (usually on a quadrilateral plan) are still awe-inspiring today. Inside them you'll see reconstructed interiors sometimes with original furnishings and museum exhibitions. Jousting tournaments are held in summer at Bytów, Gniew, and Gołub-Dobrzyń Castles. Fraternities of knights arrive from all over Europe. In their company you can step back in time for a while - to watch lance and axe duels, archery and crossbow competitions, attacks on the fortress with massive siege engines, and in the evenings sit with the knights around a campfire, take part in feasts, and watch performances of courtly dancing.
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The Eagles' Nest Trail: ruins of Olsztyn Castle |
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Southern Poland has its Eagles' Nest Trail - the ruins of dozens of defensive 14-15th-century castles, perched on the crests of limestone hills in the Cracow and Częstochowa Jura. Some of them were erected for King Casimir the Great, others belonged to the spiritual and temporal lords of Poland. Today these spectacular ruins run in a great chain across a picturesque landscape. The most impressive links in the chain are the ruins of Bobolice, Mirów, Olsztyn, Tenczyn, and Ogrodzieniec Castles. Ogrodzieniec is regarded as the most beautiful castle ruin in Poland. The Cracow and Częstochowa Jura which is the natural setting for the Eagles' Nests is a favourite with rock-climbers and excellent terrain for cycling and riding.
Castles that were once owned by aristocratic families can be seen throughout the country. Many are medieeval buildings, some convereted in a Renaissance, Baroque or Neo-Gothic style in later times. In the interiors, you'll admire the collections of art, furniture, tapestries, and firearms. Their grounds have rare species of trees and shrubs. And of course each castle has its own White Lady ...
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5 Castles worth visiting
Łańcut - a mediaeval fortress, gradually transformed into a residential mansion. Famous in Europe since the 17th century, chiefly for its magnificent interior decoration, the work of famous architects and artists. You'll find a collection of antique carriages, coaches and sleighs. In May, during the music festival that has been held here since 1961, the Castle hosts great performers from all over the world.
Niedzica - a beautiful little 14th-century castle, converted in a Renaissance style, considered one of the best historical defensive structures in Poland. Lodged on top of a cliff that plummets down to the Dunajec Reservoir.
Kórnik - a romantic castle, converted in the 19th century in an English Neo-Gothic style. Its is the biggest and oldest dendrological park in Poland, set up during the early19th century. Several thousand species of trees and shrubs from all over the world grow here on an area of about 30 hectares.
Baranów Sandomierski - a Renaissance stately home, designed by the famous Italian architect Santi Gucci. Every Thursday throughout the year, it hosts the Castle Feasts, where you'll savour old Polish cuisine to accompaniment of early music.
Krasiczyn -Built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries as a defensive structure, the Castle has superb towers and walls topped by beautiful parapets. It is located on the River San in the Pogórze Przemyskie Natural Landscape Park.
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Churches and synagogues
Poland's innumerable places of worship are also magnificent sights worth seeing. Poland was once inhabited by peoples of diverse ethnic backgrounds and religions. So alongside the Roman Catholic churches, you'll also find a large number of places of worship raised by Orthodox, Uniate, Protestant and Jewish communities. In Giżycko, a small town in Masuria, in addition to the Catholic and Protestant churches, there are two Eastern-rite Christian churches (an Orthodox and a Uniate one), and also Baptist, Pentecostal and Jehovah's Witnesses' prayer-houses and meeting halls. In the tiny villages of Bohoniki and Kruszyniany along Poland's eastern borders there are two historic mosques where Polish Muslims worship. Roman Catholic churches are the most prevalent. Many cities have Gothic or Renaissance cathedrals. Święta Lipka in the Masurian Lake District is one of the innumerable place of pilgrimage dedicated to the Virgin Mary, with a rare collection of Baroque edifices comprising a church and a Jesuit house. The sumptuous church interior houses a Baroque organ complete with moving figures. There are organ recitals in summer. Thousands of pilgrims come to Święta Lipka, a shrine with a reputation for miraculous cures going back to the 15th century.
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Wang Lutheran Church, Karpacz |
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In the Bieszczady region you can traverse the Icon Trail. It begins in Sanok at Poland's largest icon museum, and runs in a 70-km loop, winding along mountain-sides and through little villages. Along the way there are two museums and ten beautiful Eastern-rite churches with priceless icons and iconostases. Ulucz Church is the oldest Eastern-rite place of worship in Poland (1510). You can follow the trail on foot, by horse, by bike, or by boat along the River San.
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An Eastern-rite church in the Low Beskid Mountains |
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Other interesting religious sites include the old villages of Białowieża and Hajnówka. They're situated on the edge of the Białowieża Forest and the majority of their inhabitants are Orthodox Christians. The brickwork Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in Białowieża is a splendid edifice with a unique china iconostasis. Every May, church choirs come to Hajnówka from all over the world, even Africa, to take part in the International Festival of Orthodox Church Music, which takes place in the grand Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. At Grabarka in the neighbouring Podlassia region there is an Orthodox Holy Mountain known as Wzgórze Pokutników (Penitents' Hill), where for centuries pilgrims have been setting up their votive crosses of wood and metal. .
In the eastern regions of the country you'll find most of the Jewish historic buildings, too. Synagogues, mikvas (ritual baths) and cemeteries have been preserved in many places in the environs of Lublin and Podlassia. There's a splendid Baroque synagogue at Tykocin in the Białystok region. It's the second biggest synagogue in Poland (the biggest is in Cracow). Many experts consider the Mannerist defensive synagogue in Lesko in the Bieszczady region, and the enormous ancient Jewish cemetery with 16th-century carved gravestones which adjoins it the principal monuments of the Ashkenazi culture in Poland. But the country's largest Jewish cemetery (actually the largest in East Central Europe and one of the largest in the world) can be found in Łódź (central Poland). Here you'll find 200-thousand matzevot (gravestones) dating from 1893 to1939, several hundred are architecturally first-rate.
The Grave of the Tzaddik
Leżajsk, a town of a few thousand inhabitants north-east of Przemyśl, has a superb defensive Observant Franciscan priory and Church of the Annunciation with a magnificent organ. But this country town has another destination for pilgrims, the ohel (tomb) of Elimelech of Leżajsk, a renowned tzaddik (Hasidic leader) of supernatural powers, who turned Leżajsk into a centre of Hassidism in the 18th century.
On the anniversary of the tzaddik's death, the 21st day of the month of Adar (end of February and beginning of March) - pilgrims arrive from Israel, the USA, Hungary, Canada, Belarus and Lithuania. Their number is growing from year to year (in 2002 there were 10 thousand). "The tzaddik listens to the requests of those who don't ask for too much," says the rule that has been passed down for 200 years.
Open-air museums
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A girl in traditional costume |
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A special attractions along the tourist routes all over Poland are the outdoor museums of folk architecture. They are collections of original buildings: farmer's cottages, outhouses and stables, windmills and forges, churches and chapels. In some of them whole villages have been reconstructed, including the interiors of the cottages and workshops, re-created down to the tiniest detail.The main virtue of open-air museums is that they're living exhibitions. Life pulses through them all year round. In summer, many of them organise folklore fairs and shows. You can try traditional dishes inside the 17th- and 18th-century inns . You can also see folk artists and craftsmen at work painting pictures on glass, making embroidery, lacework, or splendid pottery, or carving wooden statues of the saints.
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The Sierpc Open-Air Museum |
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Open-air museums worth visiting
Wdzydze Kiszewskie - the oldest open-air exhibition in Poland where you can discover the Kashubian folk culture. There are 30 17th -19th-c. wooden folk buildings, fully reconstructed, including cottages with porches, a Dutch windmill, and an absolutely unique chapel dated 1700.
The Greater Polish ethnographic park near Gniezno in the Lednica Natural Landscape Park. This is a reconstruction of a Greater Polish village and a dwór country gentleman's cottage - a set of 50 17th- to 19th-century buildings.
Sierpc and Nowogród - two open-air museums in Mazovia displaying the colourful folklore of Łowicz and Kurpie. Kurpian houses with decorated roofs and canopies, characteristic storehouses with porches and buildings related to the traditional occupations of the Kurpie - beekeeping and fishing, and a display of fancifully coloured local costumes.
Zubrzyca Górna in the Orawa ethnographic park - beautiful old cottages and farm buildings from the Orawa and Podhale regions.
Sanok - museum of folk architecture - the largest open-air museum in Poland, with the finest examples of Carpathian wooden architecture, including different styles of cottages, huts, and Eastern-rite churches. It is divided into sectors devoted to different ethnographic groups.
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Archeological park in Biskupin |
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The best-known open-air exhibition is the Biskupin archaeological reserve. The remains of an ancient defensive stronghold built by the Lusatian Culture were discovered the 1930s on a peninsula on Lake Biskupińskie. Surrounded by swamps, it's estimated to have been constructed between 750-400BC, the oldest defensive settlement discovered in Europe. In its time, it was an important place and had a population of around 1200. They engaged in agriculture, animal rearing, and trade - it's not far from the famous Amber Road connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean. The settlement was probably destroyed during an invasion by Scythians, a nomadic people from Iran. The surrounding swamps kept the wooden structures from disintegrating. Thanks to this, the foundations have remained exactly as they were about 2,400 years ago. The remainder of the settlement was reconstructed thanks to diligent archaeological work. The archaeologists tried to recreate the original architecture and atmosphere as faithfully as possible. The exhibits occupy the entire peninsula. Inside the palisade runs a street surfaced with oak and pine tree trunks, and large wooden cottages with thatched roofs stand in parallel rows. You can go inside and look around the living quarters.
Every September, thousands of tourists flock to Biskupin. That's when the archaeological fair takes place, the biggest event of its kind in Poland. You can learn to make clay pots, shoot a bow or crossbow, light a fire, weave a basket, or paddle a dugout. It's also a chance to discover the mysteries of archaeology. Archaeologists will show you how to reconstruct a pot from a few shards and work out its age from a piece of organic material.
In many parts of Poland, you'll see mysterious structures whose origin is still a subject of controversy for the archaeologists. The best known are the stone circles in Pomerania: at Węsiory, Odry, Leśno, Łupawa, and Siemirowice. They have diameters ranging from 13-33 m, and nearby there are kurgan tumuli - tombs covered by a layer of stones. Some archaeologists claim that the circles are from the first century AD, while others suggest they appeared earlier - between 4000 and 1800BC. It's not known who built them: Scandinavian tribes or other peoples much earlier ?
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