Wdzydze Open-Air Museum

Izydor and Teodora Gulgowski were teachers in Wdzydze who began in 1906 to fill their own cottage with Kashubian furniture, tools, pottery and textiles and to open it to visitors, and that makes this the first open-air museum in Poland and one of the earliest in Europe. It grew after their deaths into a site of about twenty-two hectares with around fifty buildings brought from across Kashubia and the neighbouring Kociewie region: cottages, a manor, granaries, a windmill, a smithy, a school, and two wooden churches, one of them with a painted interior. The interiors are furnished by household and date. It sits on the shore of Lake Wdzydze, a large lake formed of four connected basins in the shape of a cross, in the middle of the Kashubian lake district. Craft demonstrations, especially weaving and pottery, run in season, and there is an annual harvest event.

What you actually see

• Poland's first skansen - begun in 1906 in a teaching couple's own cottage.
• Around fifty buildings - cottages, manor, mill, school and two wooden churches.
• Furnished interiors - arranged by household and by date.
• A cross-shaped lake - four connected basins, at the museum's edge.

When to go

May to September. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Open seasonally with little winter access. Some buildings are opened only with a guide. The site involves a lot of walking. The village has limited services.

Nearby

Wdzydze lake and the Kashubian lake district are around it; Chmielno is north.