Dobczyce Open-Air Museum

Below the ruins of a royal castle, on a slope above Lake Dobczyce, stand a handful of wooden buildings rescued from flooding and demolition. The open-air section of the PTTK Regional Museum, named after Władysław Kowalski, was created while the dam on the Raba river was being built and whole hamlets were disappearing. Today you can see an inn from 1830, a smithy in a former granary, an exhibition on old funeral customs and the oldest roadside shrine in the Dobczyce area, dated 1604.

History: a museum built by volunteers

The museum grew out of local enthusiasm. From 1960 members of PTTK, the Polish tourist society, led by local historian Władysław Kowalski, dug out the castle ruins with their own hands, and the first finds went on display in 1963 in a wooden hut. When construction of the reservoir began and old buildings had to be cleared from the valley, the idea of an ethnographic section was born. The first building was moved up the hill in 1968, part of the display opened in 1973, and the open-air museum was formally inaugurated in 1988, for the museum's 25th anniversary.

In recent years the site was renovated as part of Skansenova, an EU-funded project covering open-air museums in the Małopolska region: the historic buildings were conserved, part of the grounds paved, the fence replaced and the exhibition modernised. The section holds more than 1,000 ethnographic objects.

What to see

• The 1830 inn from Krzyszkowice near Myślenice – the largest building. Its alkierz shows a townsman's bedroom with local costumes, the "black room" (the old smoke kitchen) holds a carol-singers' nativity crib, and the guild room displays tools of potters, shoemakers, tailors, weavers and basket makers.
• The smithy in a 19th-century granary from Zagórzany – with a forge, a hand-operated bellows and an anvil set in a huge tree stump. The equipment comes from a smithy in Kornatka where several generations of one family worked.
• The former cheese store of 1890 from the Gaik farm in Brzezowa, whose land now lies under the lake – today the exhibition "Mother Earth" on farming: flails, wooden ploughs, harrows and pitchforks.
• A house from Dobczyce from the second half of the 19th century with the exhibition "End/Beginning" on old funeral customs, including a 19th-century horse-drawn hearse, black vestments and mourning banners.
• Coach houses and shelters with carts, sledges, a horse-powered treadmill and an apiary.

Interesting facts

A stone pillar shrine from 1604, its Passion reliefs worn by time, also came from the Gaik farm – it is the oldest roadside shrine in the area. Look out for the well with a sweep, too. The castle above was where the sons of King Casimir IV Jagiellon studied in the 15th century under the chronicler Jan Długosz.

Tripto tip

As of October 2026, because of restoration work at the castle, the museum runs a history-and-ethnography route in the open-air museum from 15 September to 31 October 2026. Tickets: PLN 10 standard, PLN 8 reduced, PLN 25 family. In October it is open Wed–Fri 10:00–16:00 and Sat–Sun 10:00–17:00. The regular museum ticket costs PLN 15/12, family PLN 35; children under 4 go free. Groups can book a guide (PLN 90) on +48 518 825 830. Check the museum website for hours after 31 October.

Allow 45–60 minutes. The site is on a slope with grassy and cobbled paths, so pushchairs can be awkward. Dobczyce lies about 30 km south-east of Kraków; park in the centre and walk a few minutes up to the Old Town. Nearby: the castle ruins with a tower and town walls, the Neoclassical Church of St John the Baptist with a Gothic bell from 1504, and the dam on Lake Dobczyce.