Palace in Młoszowa

The Młoszowa Palace (roughly "mwo-SHOH-vah") is a 19th-century mock castle in southern Poland with a remarkable backstory: its owners invented a medieval past for it, complete with fake epitaphs and a fictitious grave of Swedish soldiers. Set in a romantic landscape park of about 11 hectares, with gates, towers, bastions and sculptures by the father of the painter Stanisław Wyspiański, it is an offbeat half-day trip from Kraków or Katowice and one of the oddest historic homes in the Lesser Poland region.

Where it is

Młoszowa is a village in the Trzebinia municipality, roughly 40 km west of Kraków and close to the A4 motorway that links Kraków with Katowice. Kraków Airport is the nearest international airport, and the drive takes well under an hour in normal traffic. The town of Trzebinia, a few kilometers away, has frequent trains on the Kraków–Katowice line, but a car is by far the easiest way to get here. There is free parking at the site. Address: ul. Florkiewicza 1, 32-540 Młoszowa.

The palace that faked its own history

There was a manor here long before the palace; the village itself is recorded in the 14th century. Around 1800 the estate was bought by Kajetan Florkiewicz, a lawyer from the town of Kęty. From 1809 he rebuilt the manor, enclosed the grounds with a limestone wall and dug a large pond, and in 1824 an English-style garden appeared with gazebos, a rotunda, a grotto and a Chinese pavilion.

Between 1859 and 1869 Juliusz Ozdoba-Florkiewicz turned the house into a Gothic Revival "castle" and gave it a matching legend: a 17th-century fortress and a knightly family line, when the Florkiewiczes were in fact townspeople. He published the invented history anonymously in 1865 and 1880, added wall plaques commemorating events that never happened, and set up a "grave" of Swedish soldiers in the park. Polish art historians now cite Młoszowa as a textbook case of artistic mystification.

In 1896 the estate passed to Count Juliusz Potocki, who in 1898 rebuilt the south wing in a French Renaissance style designed by Zygmunt Hendel, which explains the deliberately mismatched look. After World War II the palace housed apartments and a school, and mining subsidence from a nearby colliery brought down the Royal Gate. A university in Katowice took it over in 1998; since 2018 it has belonged to the AGH University of Kraków.

What to see

• The palace façade with its Gothic Revival arcades, the chapel and the Clock Annex (Oficyna Zegarowa).
• St. Florian's Gate, the arsenal, the Belvedere Bastion and the stone wall with turrets.
• Sculptures by Franciszek Wyspiański, including the lions on the bridge, statues of St. Florian and Kajetan Florkiewicz, and an equestrian figure of King John III Sobieski.
• Mock "archaeological finds" such as a supposedly excavated Slavic idol and a Wawel Dragon by the "Dragon Rocks."
• Old trees: more than 2,200 in total, several protected as natural monuments.

Visiting tips (as of October 2026)

The park is open to visitors and free to enter. The palace interiors are not regularly open: regional tourism information says they are opened only occasionally, mostly in summer. AGH has been carrying out a major renovation and energy-efficiency upgrade (a project worth about 14 million PLN), so some buildings or areas may be fenced off. Allow 1–1.5 hours for a walk. Paths are unpaved and hilly, so they are not ideal for wheelchairs or strollers. Information on site is in Polish.

Is it worth visiting?

If you enjoy quirky history and atmospheric, slightly overgrown parks, yes — especially combined with the turquoise quarry lakes of Park Gródek in nearby Jaworzno or a drive to Kraków. Don't come expecting a furnished museum.