After leaving the church car park, we turn left and continue along the voivodeship road no. 957 uphill from the village. After approx. 250 m we pass a stylish, wooden building (dating back to 1910) of the ‘Zawojanka’ restaurant on our right. The route reaches the roundabout in Zawoja Widły (approx. 3.7 km). There we turn right into a local road, which leads to another crossroads – so called Widełki (approx. 1.7 km). Here we turn left to Zawoja Markowa. The route passes the head office of the Babia Góra National Park on its left-hand side (approx. 1.3 km).
This wooden building, erected in 1937, is an interesting example of wooden recreation villas and guest houses built in the Podbabiogórze at the beginning of the 20th century and later in the interwar period. Inside visitors can visit the Permanent Exhibition presenting the natural and cultural values of the Babia Góra region. Outside there is the Plant of Babia Góra Region Garden.
After a further 500 m we will reach a car park on the border of the Babia Góra National Park. From there, after approx. 250 m, you will reach the open-air museum (the museum itself is accessed via a local narrow asphalt road, but there is a parking problem before the entrance).
JÓZEF ŻAK OPEN-AIR MUSEUM
The Józef Żak Open-Air Museum in Zawoja in Markowe Rówienki presents traditional wooden architecture of the Babia Góra Highlanders. It is managed by the branch of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) “Ziemia Babiogórska” in Sucha Beskidzka. The open-air museum was established in 1973. At present, there are three residential buildings, a smithy, a chapel and a free-standing cellar with a granary above it. The first of the open-air museum’s cottages, Franciszek Kudzia’s, dating from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, remains on the place of its erection. The second cottage, that of Stefan Gancarczyk, built in 1906, was moved from the nearest neighbourhood. The third and oldest, that of Franciszek Stopiak, built in the years 1802-1815, was brought here from another part of Zawoja and is the most valuable object in the ethnographic museum. It was left in its original form of a chimneyless hut. The house was built of spruce and fir logs joined together on top of the logs in the so-called dovetail technique, without any mortises, and placed on a low foundation, in which there is an entrance to the cellar located underneath the house. The entire structure is covered by a gable shingle roof. Inside, a centrally placed open space court divides the whole into two parts: the residential part, consisting of the black room, the white room and the chamber, and the farming part – the stable. The latter serves as an exhibition hall. It houses an interesting collection of religious oleo-prints. The rooms of the residential part house an ethnographic exhibition consisting mainly of household equipment. The smoky oven, built in the wall between the rooms, attracts attention. A tile made of flat stones, on which the fire was lit, is located in the black room, which serves as a kitchen. In the white room there is the body of the oven which heated it. In Franciszek Kudzia’s cottage, an exhibition has been prepared on the history of mountain tourism, mainly the history of mountain guiding in the Polish part of the Carpathians. Stefan Gancarczyk’s cottage has a utilitarian function.
Address: 34-222 Zawoja – Markowe Rówieńki
Car park: approx. 250 m from the open-air museum, paid
Opening hours: Tue.-Sun. 10:00 PM - 2:00 PM, at other times by prior arrangement
tel. 607250980
Admission: 5 PLN – adults, 3 PLN – children
GPS:
N49 36.423 (49.607050)
E19 30.875 (19.514583)