Tokarnia Skansen

The Kielce village museum at Tokarnia opened in 1976 and covers about eighty hectares of hillside and valley, with around eighty buildings arranged in sectors by sub-region: the Kielce uplands, the Swietokrzyskie mountains, the Sandomierz lowland and the Checiny area, each with its own building forms. It is a broader collection than most Polish skansens because it includes non-farm buildings: a small-town square with a nineteenth-century pharmacy fitted out with its jars and counters, a manor house from Suchedniow, a school, an inn, a fire station, a windmill and a water mill, a forge and beehives. Interiors are furnished to date. The site is used for a long programme of events - harvest, Easter, craft demonstrations - and the valley setting with the buildings scattered up the slopes makes it a walk as well as a museum. Old crop varieties and livestock breeds are kept.

What you actually see

• Around eighty buildings - grouped by sub-region across eighty hectares.
• A nineteenth-century pharmacy - fitted with its jars and counters, in a town sector.
• Mills and workshops - a windmill, a water mill, a forge and a fire station.
• A manor house - moved from Suchedniow with its interiors.

When to go

May to September. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Open seasonally with reduced winter access. Interiors are often opened only with a guide. The site is hilly and the walking is real. Labelling is largely Polish.

Nearby

Checiny castle is close; Kielce is north.