From the car park in Zawoja Markowa we go back the same way. On the way, in Zawoja Wilczna, we pass a wooden building called ‘księżówka’ (on the right). It houses the Municipal Tourist Information Centre and the Saint John Paul II Memorial Chamber. At the roundabout in Zawoja Widły turn right and go along national road No. 957 to Zawoja Policzne. The route passes by contemporary wooden inns, whose architecture is reminiscent of highlander traditions. These are as follows: ‘Tabakowy Chodnik’ (on the left, by the Jaworzyna stream), ‘Dzika Chata’ (formerly “Styrnol”, on the right) and ‘Karczma Zbójnicka’ (also on the right). All of them, which is worth remembering, have regional dishes on their menus.
In Zawoja Policzne, 50 m before the last of the mentioned inns, there is an interesting chapel of St. John the Baptist dating back to the end of the 18th century (according to local legend it was founded by brigands). What is particularly beautiful and what binds this sacred building, surrounded by centuries-old lindens, made of stone and plastered, to wooden architecture, is the shingle roof covering it and dominating over the whole place. It is hipped at the bottom and turns into an onion-shaped dome at the top, topped by a lantern with a spherical cupola.
Continuing along the voivodeship road 957, the route passes the Mosorny Groń cableway lower station on the left and a moment later it enters the Babia Góra National Park. An ascent with a serpentine section leads to the Krowiarki (Lipnicka) Pass at an altitude of 1012 metres above sea level. The pass separates the massif of Babia Góra from the Polica Range and is also the natural border between the northern (Podbabiogórze) and southern (Orava) foot of Babia Góra as well as the administrative border of the Sucha and Nowy Targ counties. The pass is an important junction of hiking routes and the most popular starting point on Babia Góra. From this place, descending all the time, after approximately 5.5 km we reach the Orava Ethnographic Park Museum in Zubrzyca Górna.
ORAVA ETHNOGRAPHIC PARK MUSEUM
Museum – open-air museum of Orava architecture owes its establishment to a donation made in 1937 by the siblings Joanna Wilczkowa and her brother Sandor Lattyak (Łaciak), the last heirs of the village official’s family of Moniak. At that time, a property of over four hectares, including a historic manor house with also historic farm buildings standing in the surroundings of a beautiful small park, was transferred to the Polish State Treasury. In the post-war years more historic buildings were moved here from the Orava villages. Nowadays, the open-air museum occupies the area of over 11 acres and consists of two sectors – the old and the new one. It is currently undoubtedly the most interesting facility of this type in this part of Poland. In the museum there are over 40 objects of architecture exposed in the open air. In the centre of the old sector stands the most valuable object of the open-air museum, the already mentioned Moniak’s family manor house. The building was erected in two stages. The left wing is older and dates back to the 17th century, while the right wing was added in 1784, as evidenced by the date carved on the pine tree. The manor house is a chimneyless building. In the shingle roof covering it there are visible smoke holes, through which smoke from the ovens escaped to the outside. The interiors of the manor house, with the preserved layout of residential and utility rooms, are furnished with furniture, equipment and decorations from the times when it was the seat of a noble, wealthy, Orava family. In this part of the museum visitors can also see, among others, 19th century cottages with a characteristic gable, two inns: “Czarna” (“Black”) from the 18th century and “Biała” (“White”) from the 19th century, a lamus (kind of lumber room), a Loretto belfry and four peasant industrial plants: an oil mill, a blacksmith’s shop, a sawmill and a fulling mill. In the new sector we can see an 18th century church with three chapels and a free-standing bell tower, a vicarage, a school building from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, several other peasant cottages, one- and two-building homesteads and shepherd’s huts.
Address: 34-484 BN, Zubrzyca Górna,
Car park: open to the public, next to the building
Opening hours: XI-III: 8:30 AM - 2:30 PM; IV, IX, X: 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM; V, VI: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM; VII, VIII: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Admission: Adults: 20 PLN, Children: 12 PLN (statutory discounts), free of charge: children under 7, statutory discounts
GPS:
N49 34.221 (49.570350)
E19 38.180 (19.636333)