What to see in Rzeszow and surroundings

Rzeszow is a city located in south-east Poland. It is the capital of the podkarpackie region.

According to archaeological research, the earliest traces of settlement at the current area of Rzeszow date back to the neolithic period. On January 19th 1354, a local settlement gained a location privilege and municipal rights from king Kazimierz the Great. This date is considered the beginning of written history of Rzeszow.

Currently, Rzeszow is an interesting tourist location in south-east Poland. This article will introduce you tou some of the most interesting attractions in Rzeszow and surroundings.

The Market Square in Rzeszow

The Market Square in Rzeszow is a plaza located in the Srodmiescie district of Rzeszow. Its current buildings were constructed in the 19th century, after the fire that attacked the city in 1842. Earlier, the market square was most likely occupied by low wooden houses.

In the past, the market square in Rzeszow was a popular trading place, where merchants sold jewelry, clothes, furniture and other goods. The dominant building of the market square is the town hall, the tower of which had a bell in the 17th century. That bell marked the beginnig of trade in the morning and its end in the afternoon.

The Goodnight Cartoon Museum in Rzeszow

The Goodnight Cartoon Museum in Rzeszow is located in the centre of Rzeszow, not far from the city’s market square. It presents artefacts from the private collection of Wojciech Jama.

The Goodnight Cartoon Museum was officially opened on March 22nd 2009. In this museum visitors can see many kinds of things from popular Polish cartoons, inclusding toys, books and posters, as well as food and comsmetic wrappings, often with original content. The highlight of the museum is a collection of original puppets from shows such as „The Adventures of Colargol the Bear”, „Uszatek the Teddy Bear” and „Pik-Pok the Little Penguin”

The castle in Rzeszow

The castle in Rzeszow is one of the main monuments of the city, constructed between 1902 and 1906. The first defensive construction was most likely already standing in this area in the 16th century.

The founder of the castle was Mikolaj Spytek Ligeza – the castellan of Czchow and Sandomierz, who came from a family of senators. We don’t know much about the defensive castle constructed for the order of Ligeza. Most if the information is provided by the inventory documented in 1897 by Zygmunt Hendel. The main building of the complex was a brick-made, two-track masnsion located in its northern part.

The District Museum in Rzeszow

The District Museum in Rzeszow is a regional museum established in 1935. It gathers more than 240.000 artefacts.

The main building of the museum is a former monastery building of the Piarist convent constructed between 1644 and 1649 by Jan Canger. It was expanded and reconstructed between 1695 and 1708 based on the design by Tylman Gamerski. After the dissolution of the Piarist order, the building was dedicated to secular purposes. Since 1954, the building is the headquarters of the museum with division dedicated to archaeology, art and history, as well as a library.

The Underground Tourist Route in Rzeszow

The Underground Tourist Route in Rzeszow is a complex of former city cellars located in Rzeszow, under the market square in the Old Town.

The decision to create an underground tourist route was made in 1994, although the idea itself first appeared in the 1980s. In the 1960s and 1970s, specialists from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow have organized conservation works. In April of 2001, the route became available for visitors. At that time, it was 213 meters long and lead through 34 rooms.

The Lancut castle

The Lancut castle is a former magnate residence located in the town of Lancut, in the podkarpackie region. The original residence in the form of a defensive tower was most likely constructed by the Pilecki fmily in the second half of the 16th century. The most significant expansion of the castle based on the design of Maciej Trapola took place between 1629 and 1641, when it was owned by voivode Stanislaw Lubomirski.

In 1816, Lancut became the ownership of Alfred and Artur Potocki. During World War II, the Potocki family was not persecuted by Germans, and the castle was the location of the Wehrmacht headquarters.

The Folk Culture Museum in Kolbuszowa

The Folk Culture Museum in Kolbuszowa is a cultural institution in the podkarpackie region. The museum was opened for visitors in 1959. It was originally managed socially by the local Association of Caring for Monuments of Nature and Culture. After being nationalized in 1971, the museum began to focus on two etnographic groups – Lasowiacy and Rzeszowiacy.

The Folk Culture Museum is located at the area of three adjacent villages: Brzezowka, Kolbuszowa and Kolbuszowa Gorna. It gathers more than 80 smaller and larger objects of wooden architecture.

The shelter tunnel under the Zarnowska Hill

If you’re interested in exploring remainings of World War II buildings, you will surely be interested in the underground railway shelter located in the village of Strzyzow ion the podkarpackie region.

The shelter tunnel under the Zarnowska Hill was put to use in spring of 1941 and was part of an extensive shelter complex. You might be surprised to learn that this is the only Polish railway shelter located underground.

The tunnel is 438 meters long and nearly 9 meters high. The complex consisted of a shelter tunnel for the staff train, stairs of the technological facilities and an installation tunnel.

The Palace-Park Complex in Przeworsk

The Palace-Park Complex in Przeworsk is a complex of buildings, including a palace and an orangery, located at the area of an English style park. In 1621, Przeworsk became a private town of the Lubomirski family. The construction of the Lubomirski palace began thanks to duchess Izabela Czartoryska-Lubomirska.

The building of the current palace was constructed from the initiative of priest Henryk Lubomirski in the place of an earlier, late-renaissance defesnive mansion. Up until 1939, the Lubomirski Palace held many genuine and precious works of art, which were stolen by Germans after the outbreak of World War II.

The „Karpacka Troja” open-air museum in Trzcinica

„Karpacka Troja” is a museum complex located in the village of Trzcinica in the podkarpackie region. The idea of creating the open-air museum in Trzcinica came from Jan Gancarski – the director of the Podkarpackie Museum.

At the area of „Karpacka Troja” you can see the oldest known defensive settlements in Poland, as well as the very first traces of the Anatolian-Balkan civilization at the current area of Poland. The presence of these cultures was also confirmed in several other parts of the podkarpackie region, including Krosno and Sanok.

Bieszczady

Bieszczady is a mountain range located in south-east Poland. The ambience of those mountains is created by the landscape iself, as well as the legends surrounding it. They offer utterly breathtaking views and plenty of excellent hiking trails. The highest peak in the Polish part of Bieszczady is Tarnica. It is also a very attractive observation point.

There are plenty of exciting attractions in Bieszczady. Some of the highlights of this mountain range include:

• The Bieszczady Woodland Train – a narrow gauge railway, which offers an old-fashioned train ride.
• The Folk Construction Museum in Sanok – the very first and largest etnographic museum in terms of the number of collected artefacts.
• The Bieszczady Craft School – here you can learn the basics of calligraphy and how to make a clay dish or bake bread.
• The Demonstration European Bison Farm – here you can encounter one of the most iconic Polish animals – the European bison.

Przemysl

Przemysl is a city located in south-east Poland, in the podkarpackie region. It is one of the oldest cities in this region. The first written documents about Przemysl include the evidence of the so-called „Annual Novel” from 981 A.D. about Wlodzimierz the Great, who took Przemysl from Lachs.

Another significant source of information about the origins of Przemysl are archaeological discoveries from the times of Boleslaw Chrobry. Some of the attractions you should see in Przemysl include The Kazimierzowski Castle – a renaissance castle located at the height of 270 meters above the sea level, and the Old Town Market Square.