Palaces

Radziwiłł Palace in Balice

A few minutes from Kraków's airport, on the northern side of the A4 motorway, among the old trees of a historic park stands the grand palace known as the Radziwiłł residence. The site's history reaches back to 1519, when Seweryn Boner built a wooden manor here, and the palace owes its present neo-Baroque form to the rebuild of 1887–1894.

From the Boners to Chancellor Szembek

The brick Renaissance manor was raised on the same spot by Seweryn's son, Jan Boner; the look of the residence in those days is known from Matthias Gerung's vedute of around 1536. On 16 February 1574 King Henry of Valois, travelling to Kraków, stopped here. After the Swedish Deluge the palace was rebuilt by Grand Chancellor Jan Szembek, and at the beginning of the 19th century Urszula Darowska had it renovated.

The Radziwiłł summer residence

In 1887 Prince Dominik Radziwiłł bought the palace from the Hungarian Homolacs family and rebuilt it in 1887–1894 to a design by Tadeusz Stryjeński. He spent his holidays here with his wife Dolores de Agramonte, and in July 1912 Archduke Karl Franz Joseph and his wife Zita were guests. The Radziwiłł coat of arms faces the approach, and fan-shaped stairs lead to the first-floor terrace.

In practice

After 1945 the palace passed to the Jagiellonian University, and from the early 1950s it has served the Institute of Animal Production as a conference centre and hotel. In 2005 presidents and prime ministers met here on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Around the palace stretches a 5-hectare park in the style of an Italian garden. The building can be visited after an appointment by phone.