Załęcze Landscape Park

Here the River Warta swings in a great loop through the limestone hills of the Wieluń Upland, and along its banks springs pulse, pushing water out alternately from a rock crevice and from the bed of an oxbow lake. Załęcze Landscape Park, created on 5 January 1978 as the first park of its kind in central Poland, protects this piece of Jurassic landscape across 14,750 ha. It suits people who prefer canoes, bikes and quiet paths to the crowds of better-known Jura sites.

The landscape: the Załęcze Bend

The heart of the park is the Załęcze Bend of the Warta, a wide meander, together with two gorges cut through the Wieluń Upland: the Działoszyn and Krzeczów gorges. Most of the park lies in Łódź Province, with smaller parts in Opole and Silesia. About 53% is forest, mostly pine, but with valuable patches of open oak woodland near Niżankowice and beech forest in the south-west. Karst features are common: sinkholes, dry valleys and caves.

Caves and natural monuments

Zelce Hill, within the Węże nature reserve, holds more than a dozen caves, including Stalagmitowa (110 m of passages), Niespodzianka and the three-level Za Kratą. The longest in the area is Szachownica I on Krzemienna Góra, with about 600 m of passages. Natural monuments worth seeking out:

• Granatowe Źródła (the "Navy-Blue Springs") – the only pulsating, terraced karst springs in the Polish Jura,
• St Genevieve's Hill – the outermost limestone outcrop of the Wieluń Jura, about 1 km from Bobrowniki,
• Żabi Staw (Frog Pond) – a pool perched high above the Warta valley, home to protected small white water lilies,
• the Wronia Woda oxbow lake.

Wildlife and heritage

The flora of the park and its buffer zone counts almost 770 taxa of vascular plants, including common houseleek, maidenhair spleenwort and round-leaved sundew. Around 130 bird species have been recorded, among them kingfisher, hoopoe and goosander, while beavers and otters live along the Warta. Heritage sites include two princely burial mounds from the 2nd–3rd century AD at Przywóz, a wooden watermill at Kępowizna built in 1910–1912 and old lime kilns near Działoszyn. Just outside the park stand wooden churches of the Wieluń type, including one at Popowice built without nails.

How to explore

By bike or canoe is best. Three waymarked cycling loops, the Krzeczów Gorge loop (20.5 km), the Załęcze Bend loop (26.5 km) and the Warta Landscapes loop (31.9 km), cross the river's bridges and take in most of the sights. Walkers can follow the red Wieluń Jura Trail from Wieluń via Załęcze Wielkie to Działoszyn, or the black trail of the princely mounds. Canoeists often paddle the stretch from Bobrowniki to Załęcze Wielkie (about 10 km).

Tripto tip

Załęcze Wielkie makes a good base, with several nature trails starting there. For a single day, choose the Warta Landscapes cycling loop, which passes Wronia Woda, St Genevieve's Hill, Żabi Staw and the Granatowe Źródła springs. Look at the caves in the Węże reserve from outside and don't enter without proper preparation and equipment: they are protected sites, and the park is home to more than a dozen bat species. In spring and early summer bring binoculars, and on the sandy forest tracks a bike with wider tyres works better.