An overnight stay in Rzeszow is highly recommended for at least two reasons. Hot summer nights in Rzeszow are tempting occasions for indulgence. In fine weather, Rzeszow’s medieval market square turns into a lively place wrapped in old-world charm and ghostly magic. Mutating into a…Read More

An overnight stay in Rzeszow is highly recommended for at least two reasons.

Hot summer nights in Rzeszow are tempting occasions for indulgence. In fine weather, Rzeszow’s medieval market square turns into a lively place wrapped in old-world charm and ghostly magic. Mutating into a popular rendezvous among the native population, it is the place to stay if you want to join the melange of locals in an indulgence of music, drinking and entertaining. The atmosphere is neither too noisy nor extravagant but it is unquestionably an authentic experience of the Polish way of life at its best. The language of communication is absolutely Polish and so having the ability to understand some Polish gives one the chance to participate fully in the activity. An additional atmosphere of magic permeates into the ambience after sunset when the shaded country lamps that surround the square diffuse their yellowish candle-style illumination onto the open-air dining tables and the throngs of ghostly passers-by. Consider walking across the square alongside the shadows in a bid to explore the beauty of the floodlit kaleidoscope of pastel hues that cover up and camouflage the external walls of the Town Hall.

The entertainment scene on the Rynek started to wane by midnight. Having become weary after a day of sightseeing, having been worn out after spending hours slurping Tyskie lager, I had no other option but to leave behind my bunch of Polish friends and set off for my sleeping nest at Hotel Polonia. After a good night’s sleep, I got myself going again without delay intending to take an early eastbound bus to Lancut, go around at leisure and explore possibly all the places of interest in the city and then return to Rzeszow by evening.

Hotel Polonia is a convenient place of accommodation for those who intend to use buses or trains. From the hotel, I jumped to the bus station (Dworzec Autobusowy), the hotel being located right opposite the station on Ul Grottgera. As the timetable posted at the bus bay indicates, buses to Lancut are very frequent departing from Rzeszow and back on a regular basis every half hour. But prior to setting off, it is advisable to check the timetables at Platforms 6 and 7 carefully since some Lancut-bound buses bypass the Lancut bus station (appearing as Lancut D. A. on the timetable) which is the most convenient stop for day trippers who are short of time. An easy short hop east lasting only thirty minutes, the trip allows for numerous stops on the way, the Krasne Auchan stop three miles away from Rzeszow being ideal for those who want to stock up on foodstuffs from the neighbouring supermarket.

Unless one has tried to master the pronunciation of distinctive Polish consonants and clusters of letters through association with native speakers, one should not attempt to utter words as hard and tricky to express as Lancut (more or less pronounced wan-tsoot, but still incomprehensible to attendants at bus or train stations if expressed accordingly). To avoid being teased in front of a bus load of locals and mind you, Poles are awfully good at leg-pulling, it is wise to write down the hard-to-pronounce term, be it the name of a city or the name of a particular stop, on a slip of paper and show it off to the driver. This prevents embarrassment on your part and encourages assistance and support on the part of the operating attendant.

I took the 9:00 am Veolia bus from Platform 7 expecting to arrive at Lancut by 9:30 am. Out of the station, the bus plied eastwards along Al. Pilsudskiego before it crossed Most Lwowski, the wide bridge way that stretches out over the Wislok River. From here, the bus continued east along Ul Lwowska cutting across the Osiedle Mieszka suburb to the roundabout intersection that heralds the onset link with the A4 dual-carriage motorway. Once on the A4, the bus traced its way hastily, punctuating its route with only two stops. As the bus approached Lancut, the motorway changed direction and the surrounding landscape assumed an air of soothing freshness and uncluttered spaciousness. The dual-carriage motorway changed into a single carriageway as the bus wended its way through Lancut. After stopping at three further stops on the outskirts of the city, the bus soon reached the station located within picturesque green surroundings only a short walk northeast of the city’s main attractions.

Lancut is renowned for the Lubomirski Palace, a huge castle complex enclosed within a peripheral zone bordered by three main thoroughfares: Ul Kosciuszki, Ul Osiedle 3 Maja and Ul Armii Krajowej. Although the park is right across the road south of the bus station, access to the gardens is only possible through Ul Zamkowa, a secondary road on the extreme westernmost edge of Ul Kosciuszki.

The sheltered kiosk hidden under dense foliage on Ul Zamkowa outside the entry gate to the landscaped park acts as a ticket office, selling two categories of entry tickets. One ticket allows for a two-hour guided tour of the palace only; a combined ticket includes in addition to the palace a tour of the former stables and coach-house. Having made my way into the park, I walked hastily along the main gravelled pathway to the palace, intending to go around the palace first and view the park later. The palace tour had been scheduled to start not before the number of visitors gathered together in the hallway went up to ten. In a matter of minutes, I counted ten and before long, a lady guide appeared to start off the tour. But… to my astonishment, she was a monolingual Pole and contrary to my expectations the tour was inevitably set to be conducted entirely in Polish. Since my knowledge of Polish vocabulary is limited to a few everyday words and phrases, I had no other option but to voice my disapproval with the officer in charge. Having made me aware that tours in English are conducted whenever enough pre-bookings make this viable, he was helpful enough to hand out an English audio-guide in a bid to make it possible for me to go around on my own.

The palace’s heyday began in the early seventeenth century when Stanislaw Lubomirski transformed the existing derelict castle into an impressive baroque structure, its new design and embellishment having been assigned to the famous Dutch architect Tielman van Gameron. The last owner of the palace was Alfred Potocki who shortly before the arrival of the Russian army in July 1944 relocated the most precious collections to Vienna. What remained and the palace itself were then left under the care of Potocki’s servants whose ingenuity and resourcefulness helped in no small way towards the survival and preservation of what was left behind after the war.

Today, a tour of the palace embraces the rooms on the west side of the ground floor together with the entire first floor. Meticulously restored to their original grandeur, the stately chambers and the suite of connecting rooms and corridors are themselves a showcase of splendour, a symbol of the majestic opulence that characterized the former Polish aristocracy. Housed inside the chambers, enormous collections of paintings, sculptures, objets d’art, fine handicrafts and weapons are watchfully displayed for art connoisseurs to scrutinize and admire. Worthy of mention are the excellent library, untouched by wartime destruction and the dining room, a huge richly decorated chamber with seating for eighty guests.

The spacious landscaped park that surrounds the palace is a beautiful formal garden of flower beds, exotic trees and manicured lawns, traversed by a series of gravelled pathways that are ideal for a leisurely stroll in an ambience of peacefulness. One particular path leads to the remaining section of ramparts that were formerly laid out in the shape of a five-pointed star around the entire park. Among the outbuildings scattered here and there in the park, the most delightful is the Orangery, a splendid shaded greenhouse with an impressive layout and an eye-catching design.

South of the palace, the pathway next to Hotel Zamkowy leads to Ul Armii Krajowej. A wonderful chateau-like building across the thoroughfare houses inside its vast chambers the palace’s stables and coach-house. The latter holds a wonderful exposition of over hundred horse-drawn carriages, all carefully restored to their original glittering beauty. Animal lovers will either approve or disapprove to the pack of stout horses (well-fed, aren’t they?) that still inhabits some of the stables but children are amazed by the friendly and docile attitude of the animals.

The empty stables adjacent to the souvenir shop were restored and utilized as an exhibition space to hold a display of over one thousand icons and a vast collection of church artworks, mostly originating from Orthodox churches scattered in the region. The display is a veritable treasure-trove of outstanding beauty, a nonpareil of extraordinary artistic achievement and craftsmanship.
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Midway between Krakow and Lviv, Rzeszow is a huge city with a large population located deep within an unspoilt picturesque valley. Sheltered from the south by the Beskid Niski Mountains, it lies in the middle of an extensive well-preserved forested area of pine, oak and…Read More

Midway between Krakow and Lviv, Rzeszow is a huge city with a large population located deep within an unspoilt picturesque valley. Sheltered from the south by the Beskid Niski Mountains, it lies in the middle of an extensive well-preserved forested area of pine, oak and beech, this being a favourite haunt for hikers and a Garden of Eden for nature lovers and bird watchers.

Originating out of the rugged Carpathian Foothills (the mountain range that forms a natural boundary between southeast Poland and Slovakia), the Wislok River cuts across the city sketching out two distinct zones that cannot be more different. The east zone is a residential suburb, a post-war jungle of Communist-style dreary apartment blocks, characterless, bleak and with no architectural appeal. The west zone is the Strodmiescie district, a medieval quarter of traditional buildings, cobbled streets and fine museums.

Trains originating in Krakow stop at Tarnow station before they proceed fifty miles further east to Rzeszow. I took the 9:00 am train from Tarnow in a bid to reach Rzeszow early intending to sightsee the place at leisure before moving on eastwards towards the Ukrainian border.

The train soon left Tarnow behind wending its way through an extensive stretch of hillside grassland, peppered here and there with large patches of odd craggy rock formations and smaller patches of wasteland devoid of greenery. After stopping at Wola Rzedzinska station, the train proceeded along a northeast route heading towards the Jawornik Parkland, an unspoilt densely forested terrain of spruce and pine. Cutting across the park, it reached the town of Czarna, a small urban settlement well-hidden amidst forest groves and so impossible to give it a passing glance through the train’s window. Leaving Czarna behind, the train changed direction and for several minutes followed the line of the Czarna watercourse, a splendid canal drowned in running water and bordered with crop fields and fruit orchards on both sides. After tracking its route through the insignificant out-of-the-way Podgorze station, the train crossed the bridge over the mighty Wisloka River and headed straight to Debica. Located close to the city centre, Debica main station allowed for good views of the cityscape through the train’s window. Only a short distance away from the station, the pointed pinnacles of two pairs of bell towers were clearly in sight; another pair was visible at a distance on the southern edge of the city.

Leaving Debica, the train continued its journey eastwards along flat landscape plying close to a long stretch of the A4 motorway before it reached the picturesque valley town of Sedziszow Malopolski. Out of the station, the train delved south, bypassed the motorway and continued for a few minutes along this course. Taking back a sharp northbound turn, it crossed the bridge over the A4 and proceeded eastwards for about ten minutes. Meeting the A9 after changing direction, the train moved on towards Rzeszow, completing the trip Tarnow – Rzeszow in eighty minutes.

Painstakingly restored to its former glory and given a contemporary look after years of neglect, Rzeszow train station (Rzeszow Glowny) is a nineteenth-century edifice, its plain stone-covered neoclassical front elevation being an architectural attraction in its own right. The shocking red arched design above the main entrance, the name of the station displayed in a glowing shade of blue and the digital clock embedded into the roof parapet are all modern, somewhat out-of-place additional features. All necessary facilities are located on the ground floor in the main hall where in addition to several ticket-sales offices and a couple of information points, one finds a number of self-service restaurants, two fast-food outlets and a book store that sells Polish papers and periodicals and all the odds and ends one may require during one’s stopover in the city. Ticket-dispensing machines have been installed inside making it easier and quicker to buy a train ticket. If however you are pressed to buy your ticket over the counter, make sure to write down your destination and time of departure on a slip of paper before you approach the officer in attendance. An attempt to pronounce tongue-twisting names of Polish cities to a native Pole results in a lot of giggling and rarely if ever will your attempt be rewarded with a positive outcome. Finding English-speaking attendants in this part of Poland is an enduring feat of endeavour hardly paid off with support, sympathy and comprehensibility.

A stone’s throw west of the train station, the huge sheltered space one sees bordering Ul Grottgera is the long-distance bus station. Buses from here depart regularly to most places within a radius of 80 miles. The station has neither a ticket nor an information office but the posted timetables conveniently hanged up near each bus bay can be deciphered with ease. Giving out all the details essential for the trip, the timetables display the arrival / departure time at each destination along the route, making it utterly easy to stop at a particular place and then hop on the next bus later.

Opposite the bus station on Ul Asnyka, one finds the tourist information centre housed inside a modern office space. The two officers in attendance did not even bother to offer their assistance probably due to their lack of English-speaking competence and so I had to rummage amidst scores of papers and brochures to come across a city map that I urgently needed in a bid to go around the city without getting lost.

Ul Grunwaldzka is a direct shortcut from the bus station to the Rynek, the city’s medieval market square. Pedestrianized and carpeted with granite slabs, it is an amazing walkway, busy, full of character and popular with locals and tourists alike. A haven for shoppers, Ul Grunwaldzka is lined with handicraft shops, art galleries, book stores, antiquarians and other specialized businesses of all sorts. Worthy of mention for its unique fine craftsmanship is a particular artisan shop that deals in filigreed jewellery and silver craftwork inlaid with glistening semiprecious stones or polished amber, undoubtedly the spot to buy a veritable gift to set aside for your loved one back at home.

On the extreme edge of Ul Grunwaldzka, the fifteenth-century Gothic parish church of St Stanislaus and St Adalbert occupies centre stage on a busy square. Reconstructed without taking into consideration the original design and refurbished with gaudy ornamental work, it has eventually mutated into a neoclassical place, the only remnant of its early Gothic design being the vaulting that supports the chancel. In summer, the two narrow walkways east of the parish church, particularly Ul Kosciuszki turn into one huge dining area as restaurant owners add extra tables outside in a bid to create an open-air setting.

Right off Ul Kosciuszki is the city’s Rynek, a huge piazza surrounded with a conglomeration of fine colourful constructions, most being remodelled versions of the original buildings. The Museum of the City of Rzeszow on the south side of the square contains a variety of exhibits, largely related to the history and traditions of the region. The labelled displays are interesting and well-supplied with information but the historical building where these are housed is itself a bonus attraction and more interesting than the exhibits.

The centre of attraction on the Rynek is indisputably the sixteenth-century Town Hall. Located on one edge of the square but isolated from the surrounding buildings, it is a colourful neo-Gothic stand-alone edifice, a masterpiece of architectural design and masonry craftsmanship. Remodelled a century ago, it was then given a more ornamental eye-catching face-lift, its outward features having been rendered too ostentatious and flamboyant. The raised parapets topping the roof are themselves a show of vivid extravaganza and grandeur.

The wide descending entrance on one side of the Town Hall is not a car parking space but it is the doorstep to a series of underground cellars which one can visit. Running under the entire square, these were formerly used as food stockrooms in time of war or as Polish guides passionately explain as hiding places for local heroic insurgents.

A short detour along Ul Kosciuszki brings one back to the parish church. From here, a short walk south on Ul 3 Maja (the town’s main promenade) leads to the Piarist Church, a splendid place of worship richly decorated with a profusion of fine stucco work. Being packed with believers, the church cannot be inspected in full since service seems to run throughout the day. In the monastery next door, one finds the Regional Museum, a fine building worth a visit more for its frescoed vaults than for its range of dusty exhibits.

The southern edge of Ul 3 Maja forks out into two. Ul Dekerta leads to the Lubomirski summer residence while Ul Zamkowa heads straight to the sixteenth-century Castle. Remodelled by the Lubomirski family and recently renovated, it is a grand edifice that deserves a visit. The preserved Baroque entry tower as well as the ramparts and bastions are original.



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