Guciów Farmstead

In a wooden granary built in 1762 lie fragments of Mars and the Moon – and next to them the only meteorite ever found in the Roztocze hills, discovered by the farm's owner himself. Guciów Farmstead in the Wieprz valley, in the Zwierzyniec district, is a historic 17th–19th-century farm that the Jachymek family turned into a culinary open-air museum, an ethnographic and natural history museum and one of the country's most unusual collections. In 2017 National Geographic named it one of the "7 Wonders of Poland".

A culinary open-air museum

The farmstead bills itself as a "museum of what people ate 100 years ago in the Zamość countryside". Its cottages, barns and cowsheds are on the heritage register, and in 2025 the owners received a gold badge from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for saving the monuments of the Zamość region. Instead of exhibits behind a rope there are demonstrations of baking podpłomyki (traditional flatbreads) with tasting, weaving workshops, rides on horse-drawn carts and sleighs, bonfires and concerts of Roztocze music. Polish konik ponies and goats graze in the meadows, a historic apiary stands in the valley, and in the evenings frogs give concerts in the oxbow lakes.

Meteorites and dinosaurs

The star exhibit is the "Zakłodzie" meteorite – an 8.68 kg stone found in 1998 by Stanisław Jachymek in the village of Zakłodzie and provisionally classified as an enstatite achondrite. The owner's collection includes complete specimens and fragments of more than 50 meteorites from around the world, among them pieces from Mars, the Moon and Chelyabinsk in Russia; since 2013 they have been displayed in the permanent "Falling Stars" exhibition in the granary. The founding meeting of the Polish Meteorite Society took place in Guciów.

That is not the end of the surprises. In 2005 Stanisław Jachymek and Dr Gerard Gierliński of the Polish Geological Institute discovered dinosaur tracks some 70 million years old in the nearby village of Potok, 5 km from Guciów – left by plant-eating hadrosaurs and a predator from the tyrannosaur family. At the farmstead you can see these tracks and a fossilised "trunk" of a Cretaceous tree fern.

Did you know?

• In June 2008 James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, visited the farmstead while promoting his book "Avoid Boring People".
• In October 2011 Olga Tokarczuk came here looking for inspiration for "The Books of Jacob".
• On Monastyr hill in the village are the ramparts of a 9th–11th-century hillfort, and archaeologists have excavated a Bronze Age barrow cemetery by the Wieprz.

Tripto tip

The farmstead's address is Guciów 19 (22-470 Zwierzyniec). The museum is visited with a guide; from 22 June 2026 a standard ticket costs PLN 39, a reduced ticket PLN 30 and a large-family ticket PLN 25. In September 2026 the museum and culinary open-air museum were open Friday to Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00 – hours change with the season, so check the farmstead's website before you go. The inn is currently closed, but the gallery with souvenirs and the shop with regional products are open. Allow 1.5–2 hours for your visit; parking and toilets are on site.