Ostrów Lednicki

At the Gniezno Lake District, several kilometers to the west from Gniezno, there is lake Lednica. In its central part you can find Ostrów Lednicki – the largest of the five islands, at which beginning in the late 5th and early 66th century several cultures were settling, leaving various traces behind. In the 8th century, in the northern part of Ostrów Lednicki, a settlement of Slavonic Poles was created. As a result of the expansions, which was ordered by prince Mieszko I, in the mid-10th century the southern settlement occupied one-third of the surfasce of Ostrów.

At the area of the settlement you can see the relicts of two stone buildings: the palace and the chapel, whixh most likely originated in 964, as well as the settlemednt church from the times of Bolesław Chrobry. In the following centuries, a cemetery was also created.

In the 1930s, this was the place of the discovery of the largest early-medieval cemetery in Poland.
You can get to the island on a ferry from a harbor located at the edge of the lake. Right next to that harbor there is a Small Open-Air Museum with an etnographic exhibit and a pavilion known as Skarbczyk, whicch was bulit based on the St., Jan Jerozolimski from Malta in Poznań.

At the north-west edge of lake Lednica there is a village of Imiołki, which iius renowned thanks to the youth meetings. In 1997, before the pilgrimage of Jan Paweł II to Poland, a dominican priest named Jan Góra suggested to celebrate the upcoming new milleniukm by building a specific monument of the Gate of the Third Millenium.