Rogalin Palace

Rogalin was built from the 1770s for the Raczynski family and has three things worth the trip. The house itself is a late-baroque and classical block with curving wings and a stable court. The gallery beside it was put up in 1910 by Edward Aleksander Raczynski to hold his collection of Polish and European painting of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - Malczewski, Chelmonski, Boznanska among others - and it is one of the more important private collections to have survived into public hands, displayed in the crowded hanging of its period. And behind the house, on the Warta floodplain, stands one of the largest concentrations of ancient pedunculate oaks in Europe: several hundred trees of great age, of which the three biggest are called Lech, Czech and Rus after the legendary founders of the Slavic nations. Some are dead standing and left in place for the beetles that live in them.

What you actually see

• A late-baroque house - built from the 1770s with curving wings and stable court.
• The 1910 picture gallery - Polish painting hung as the collector arranged it.
• Ancient oaks - several hundred on the floodplain, among Europe's largest groups.
• Lech, Czech and Rus - the three biggest trees, named for the founding legend.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

The oak meadow floods and can be impassable in spring. Palace and gallery are separate parts of one ticket with timed entry. Closed Mondays. The village has minimal services.

Nearby

Kornik castle and its arboretum are across the river; Poznan is north.