Sadecki Ethnographic Park

The skansen at Nowy Sacz covers about twenty hectares and holds around eighty buildings, which makes it the largest open-air museum in the south of the country, and its organising idea is that this corner of the Carpathians was inhabited by several distinct groups: Lachy Sadeckie in the valleys, Gorale Sadeccy in the hills, Lemkos and Boykos of the Ruthenian tradition, and German colonist villages of the eighteenth century. Each has its own sector with cottages, farmsteads and churches, including a Lemko wooden church with an iconostasis and a Protestant church from a German settlement. There is a Roma sector - one of very few museum presentations of Roma dwelling in Poland - and a reconstructed small-town square, Miasteczko Galicyjskie, in the town itself as a separate branch, with shopfronts and interiors of the Austrian period. Events through the summer include craft demonstrations and folk music.

What you actually see

• Four cultures side by side - valley and hill Poles, Ruthenians and German colonists.
• A Lemko church with its iconostasis - moved and re-erected on site.
• A Roma sector - rare in Polish museum presentation.
• A Galician town square - the separate branch in Nowy Sacz itself.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Honest expectations

Open seasonally with limited winter access. Interiors often need a guide. The site is large and involves a lot of walking. The Galician town branch is a separate ticket in a different part of the city.

Nearby

Nowy Sacz old town is close; Stary Sacz is ten kilometres south.