For The Love of Travel

The history of Rzeszów begins in 1354, when it received city rights and privileges by Casimir the Great.  Local trade routes connecting the European Continent with the Middle East  and the Ottoman Empire resulted in the city’s early prosperity and development. In the 16th century, Rzeszów had a connection with Gdansk and the Baltic Sea. Following the Partitions of Poland, Rzeszów was annexed by the Austrian Empire and did not regain its position until it returned to Poland after WW1. During WW2, Rzeszów’s large Jewish community perished in the Holocaust.  I visited the Synagogue’s art gallery to see the latest exhibition, a Pisarek family affair it seems -Krzysztof, Renata and Anna. Liked the portraits and the horse!     Then onto Sandomierz….

It’s one of the oldest and historically most significant cities in Poland. Archeological finds around the city indicate that humans have inhabited the area since neolithic times.The city came into existence in the early Middle Ages, taking advantage of an excellent location at the junction of Vistula and San rivers, and on the path of important trade routes. The first known historical mention of the city comes from the early 12thC, when the chronicler Gallus Anonymus ranked it together with Krakow and Wroclaw as one of the main cities of Poland.

In the middle of the 14thC, the city was burned again during a raid by the Lithuanians. It was rebuilt in the 14thC during the rule of king Casimir 111 of Poland.
The layout of the city has survived practically unchanged since that time until the present day.The Cathedral is Gothic, constructed in 1360. Renovated in the Baroque style in the 18thC. My favourite religious place in the country!!! Jan Dlugosz (House Museum)…Polish priest, diplomat, chronicler of historic events, soldier and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Olesnicki of Krakow. Wrote about the 1410 Battle of Grunwald. Young people today dressed in costumes of older decades. Such fun! Check out the mosaic….I will never have the patience to do such fine work! But can totally appreciate it.

 

 

On 10 April 1580, Chancellor and Great Crown Hetman Jan Zamoyski issued a foundation charter, declaring the beginning of construction of Zamość, on a trade route link between northwest Europe and the Black Sea.  The process lasted more than 10 years.  The town soon became known as a centre of progress, science, culture, and art in Poland. To ensure safety, Zamość was surrounded with defensive walls with 7 bastions at their bends; mighty cannons on top of the bastions protected the town. From the south and west, access to the town was blocked by marsh; from the east and north, by a deep moat. Despite its heptagonal fortifications, there were invasion try-ons by different groups – Cossacks and Swedes in 17thC, Russians in the 19thC – besieged, stormed but never captured! In 1821, the ‘ruling’ Zamoyski family exchanged their ownership of the town, for land ownership concessions. Zamość, became a government fortress of the Congress Kingdom of Poland. During WW2, Zamość was captured first by the Soviets and then by the German army. 

Zamość is a lovely example of a Renaissance town, modelled on Italian trading cities of the period, complete with its original layouts and fortifications. The market place is the showpiece of the town with the town hall, colourful Armenian houses and the Synagogue, which are reminders of the muti-cultural past of the town. Delicious zurek soup lunch at the 1590 restaurant “Morandowska”. And a nice trek home with autumnal tree change happening on the road and an ‘unthought-through’ planting at a house on the edge of the highway! 🙂

Drove from Sanok to Łańcut Castle, a journey of some 90 kms this morning.

The Castle lies on the fringe of the Carpathian foothills, by an old trade route which linked Western Europe and Ruthenia (Hungary, Ukraine and Poland) from medieval times. The town was chartered in 1349, and its first owners were the powerful Pilecki family. They built the first wooden-defensive manor, in which Poland’s monarchs were frequent guests.  The Pilecki family is associated with the marriage of King Wladyslaw Jagiello with Elzbieta Granowska nee Pilecka, which provoked a scandal in those days (she had been kidnapped twice by different suitors; married a career diplomat, with her husband dying from poisoning 13 years after; she was a middle-aged widow when he married her and she had no political connections).  The years 1568-1628 were a time of ruin for the town. Łańcut Castle belonged to the Stadnicki’s, Stanislaw (the “Devil of Lancut”) Stadnicki and his sons. Adventurism and war against their neighbours led to the burning and levelling of the castle and the destruction of the town, which was overrun and sacked by enemies many times. 

Under the rule of the Lubomirski family from 1628 to 1816, Łańcut Castle came back to life.   The early seventeenth century was a time of Turkish expansion into Europe, for which reason Stanislaw Lubomirski set out to turn Łańcut into a strong fortress to guard against entry into the Republic. In the mid-seventeenth century the castle was considered an unassailable fortress. In 1761 the synagogue which stands to this day was built.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the fortress was transformed into a palatial residence. The outer ring of fortifications was liquidated, with an English-style park put in its place. The castle interiors were adapted to the fashions of the times. Elzbieta Lubomirska nee Czartoryska, a collector and excellent connoisseur of art, played a large part in this. 

The next and last owners of Lancut were the Potocki’s, who were tied by marriage to all of Europe’s aristocracy.  The palace we see today is the result of their efforts in 1889-1911. They faithfully maintained the grand interiors from the days of the Lubomirski’s, concentrating more on introducing modern conveniences. They put in a water and sewer system, and added luxurious bathrooms to the chambers. The number of bathrooms must have shocked their contemporaries: after a tour of the castle, Roman Potocki’s mother declared that its interior reminded her of Dianabad, the largest public baths in Vienna. 

In 1906, the castle gained an electrical system with its own generator. The last interior to be modernised was the palace theatre, renovated to the designs of Viennese architects.

 

 

 

 

 

The palace surroundings changed as well. The park area nearly doubled. An Italian garden and a rose garden were added, and orchid and palm houses were built, the latter modelled after the palm house in Schonbrunn. 

The Potocki’s remembered the towns people as well. At the turn of the century they completely renovated the parish church. The distillery founded by the Lubomirski’s was modernised and enlarged, producing the quality-famed spirits of Count Alfred Potocki’s Privileged Distillery of Liqueurs, Rosoglios and Rum.   During the occupation, German army staff were stationed in the castle. When the outcome of World War II became obvious to everyone, Alfred III Potocki, the last of Łańcut lords, dispatched about six hundred crates to Vienna by rail, containing the most valuable works of art. Among them were paintings by Bellini, Boucher, Fragonard and Watteau, eighteenth-century tapestries manufactured in Aubusson, sculptures by Thorvaldsen. Alfred III himself abandoned Łańcut a week before the Soviet army crossed into Poland, never to return again. That the residence was spared plunder and destruction at the hands of the Soviets is due to the courage and resourcefulness of the palace staff, and their loyalty to Potocki.