Chocholow

Chocholow is a single long street lined almost entirely with original wooden highlander houses in the Podhale manner - large horizontal log walls of spruce, high shingled roofs, carved doorframes - and it is the most complete wooden village street in Poland. What it is known for is the washing: traditionally twice a year, for Easter and for Corpus Christi, the households scrub the outside walls of their houses with water and brushes to take the grey off the timber and return it to pale wood, and the practice continues. The village has a history of resistance - the Chocholow uprising of 1846 against Austrian rule started from here - and a small museum in one of the houses covers it. The church is nineteenth-century. There is now a large thermal bath complex on the edge of the village, which brings traffic and has changed the balance of the place.

History

The village was founded in the 16th century by Bartłomiej Chochołowski, whom King Stephen Báthory made its hereditary headman, and its first church was built in the same century. In 1846 it gave its name to the Chochołów Uprising against Austrian rule, led by the local organist and teacher Jan Andrusikiewicz, and the present brick church was built from 1853 to 1873 (Wikipedia, Chochołów, Lesser Poland Voivodeship; Polish Wikipedia, Chochołów (województwo małopolskie)).

The main sights

• A single wooden street - original highlander log houses along one road.
• Scrubbed walls - the timber washed pale by hand twice a year.
• The 1846 uprising - remembered in a small museum in one of the houses.
• Podhale carpentry - shingled roofs, carved doorframes, spruce log walls.

When to go

May to September; before Easter or Corpus Christi for the washing. Half a day.

Practical notes

The houses are lived in and private. The thermal baths have brought heavy traffic to the village. The museum keeps short hours. There is little to do beyond walking the street.

Nearby

Zakopane is twenty kilometres east; Czarny Dunajec is north.

Key facts