Miechów Upland – a land of nature reserves

Actively in the summer

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spring landscape with flowered hills and multi-coloured fields

The Miechów Upland, a land of natural beauty, impresses at any time of the year. It offers an idyllic landscape of gentle hills covered with a colourful mosaic of fields, meadows and forests. It is like a fairytale patchwork sewn from wheat, rye, oats, corn and cabbage. Decorated with poppies, cornflowers and a million other field flowers growing in the thermophilous grasslands protected in nature reserves and Natura 2000 sites.

Natural heritage

The almost entire area of the Miechów Upland, whose centre is the historic town Miechów, is situated in the Protected Landscape Area of the Miechów Upland. The landscape of agricultural fields with crops, vegetables, herbs and the fragmented structure of farms creates a characteristic mosaic landscape, which is not found in other regions of Poland. Eight nature reserves have been established here, protecting the remnants of primaeval nature - stands of steppe vegetation and valuable multi-species tree stands, and the historical and landscape reserve “Kościuszko Mound” in Janowiczki. In addition, there are 21 Natura 2000 network areas to protect the biodiversity of the European continent and preserve natural habitats, as well as plant and animal species considered valuable or endangered on a European scale. The natural gardens, fields, meadows and forests are home to wild boars, roe deer, foxes, polecats, martens, hares, badgers, partridges and pheasants, butterflies and insects. On the ponds and rivers beavers and wild ducks, and in the sky quetzals, turtledoves, hawks, buzzards, hobbies, kestrels and many others.

Monuments and exceptional nature

In the land of orchids and lavender fields, cornfields, and vegetable fields stretching to the horizon, interesting monuments have been preserved, including those crucial to the tradition of the Polish struggle for independence - Polish nobleman's mansions, old parks and trees, wooden churches of the Małopolska Wooden Architecture Route, and historical places associated with the Kosciuszko Insurrection, headed by the Racławice Fields as a monument to history.

The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Miechów is the only place in the world with a faithful copy of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When Saladin's army overran Jerusalem and Christians were expelled from there, it was to the Holy Sepulchre in Miechów that pilgrims from the whole Christian world of that time went on pilgrimages, and they still go on pilgrimages today. Santi Gucci, the famous Italian artist, architect of the Renaissance and Mannerism, who designed the Mirów Castle, worked in Książ Wielki. The overpowering space, natural beauty, wild environment and varied relief of the area are conducive to recreation and tourism - it is here that the first cycle trail in Małopolska was created on the line of the former narrow-gauge railway. Charsznica is famous for the best cabbage and pickled cucumbers under the sun.

We suggest what else is worth seeing and feeling

Near Krępa and Czaple Małe you can admire corn fields with cornflowers, and poppies and lavender fields.
In Przesławice it is worth visiting the 18th-century Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Mother located on the Wooden Architecture Route.
In Sławice Szlacheckie you can take a loop around the Sławice Duchowne Natura 2000 Site, from where you can admire postcard-like panoramas of the Miechów Upland with its chequered fields, mid-field woodlots and flowery steppes.
The Komorów and Poradów Natura 2000 sites show the beauty of further protected, rare or endangered plant species, such as orchids, anemones and asters.
A particularly large cluster of orchids is revealed in the Natura 2000 site Kalina Mała, close to the source of the Kalinka stream.
By the Cicha stream, near Stawna Góra and in the Cicha Valley, on meadows among half-crop and vegetable fields, and picturesque birch groves with rushes, you can meet grazing goats, sheep and cows.
The windmills on the tops of Miechów Mountains will surely surprise you positively, and from the terraces of the observation tower in Dosłońce history will speak with images of symbols and battles of the Kosciuszko insurrection: the monument to Bartosz Głowacki, the Kosciuszko Mound, the Battle of Racławice Fields.
A picturesque panorama of the Racławice Fields can be seen from Zamczysko Hill in Janowiczki. On the hill we also see a defensive mansion from the first half of the 14th century - only a dry moat remains, and legends about an underground passage connecting the mansion with the Church of St. Andrew in Wrocimowice or the Church in Racławice.
In the manor park in Janowiczki there is a noteworthy manor house whose style refers to a provincial manor house from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. There are also graves of kosynierzy and a chapel. Not far from the manor house in Janowiczki is the villa of Walery Sławek, a statesman, parliamentarian and prime minister of the government in interwar Poland.
In Racławice it is worth visiting the Church of Saints Peter and Paul.
In Tunel there is the longest, 764 metres long, railway tunnel in Poland, dating back to 1885.
Take a fantastic cycling trip along the Cycling Route to the Sun through the Miechów Upland.