Karpacka Troja - Carpathian Troy
There is a new super star among sightseeing spots of the still very undiscovered Subcarpathian Region: the open air museum of Trzcinica. When leaving Jaslo in the western direction, towards Biecz, Gorlice and Nowy Sacz you should watch out not to miss a plain turn to the right, just after leaving behind the city limits. Trust me, you simply do not want to miss it!
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| A view towards Jaslo from the hills of Trzcinica |
First thing to know when looking for an open air museum in Poland is the Polish Non-Polish name for this sort of museum: Skansen. Skansen is originally a place in Sweden with the first open air museum in the world. Polish just took the name of the Swedish town to create a Polish description for this kind of exposition. So in case you get lost on your way, you should ask for the skansen and no one would send you to Sweden: they will show you the way to the local museum. You may indeed get lost as sometimes road signs in Poland tend to be incomplete, hidden or just not there. Your navigation might as well not have the intercultural competence to understand the Polish way of building roads and send you on your way to the museum through serpentines and farmers' back yards. And when you accept the fact that asking for directions is still an adequate contemporary way to find places, you may eventually have troubles pronouncing the name of the village: Trzcinica. It contains all of the challenges of Polish language and non-Polish people say "Bless you!" when you speak the word in a correct way. So when lost, ask for skansen, use your Swedish.
It was quite not a surprise for archeologists to find in Trzcinica evidence of an ancient settlement. The place has ideal features when seen from the perspective of ancient settlement planners: remarkably steep to three sides. And above all, the scientists had more hints: on the top of the hill unnatural therefore artificial earthwalls were clearly visible. First professional archaeologic excavations have been performed in the 50s of the 20th century. Nobody really knew back then that the discoveries will be that big and will reach so far in the past.
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| The reconstruction of the earliest settlement of Trzcinica |
Due to the archeological discoveries, which reached their peak in the 90s of the 20th century, three major drafts of the settlement could be determined. Both oldest ones are ascribed to the Otomani-Füzesabony culture living in the Bronze Age. The latest settlement reaches the early middle ages and has been raised by Slavic population. All three milestones of development are nicely visualized in miniature in the museum belonging to the skansen.
Talking of the museum: you can only enter the museum with a guide. This makes sense for the very important reason - the guides are trained to translate the professional historical and archeological terminology into a common sense of an average visitor. And they are doing a great job on that!
The museum shows next to original artifacts explored in the layers of ground of Trzcinica's settlement, scenes of the every day life of the cultures who lived in this place. The amount of evidence and the undamaged state of the findings of Trzcinica were so overwhelming that soon the archeologists started to compare the place with a discovery of Troy. This is how the official name of the skansen has been established.
After this very appealing, not at any time boring historical introduction inside the museum, your guide will take you outside to slender through the ground of the skansen. There are two parts of the concept. At the foot of the hill, you can visit houses reconstructed to visualize the three different stages of civilization that followed after one another in Trzcinica.
The houses exemplify the different construction solutions and you will be told about the different use of each room. There are also some scenes of every day life set in scene here too.
Talking about the guide: the internet site of the museum recommends making an appointment before arriving so that they make sure you get inside on preferable time and get a guided tour in the language of your choice. Our little German-Polish group visited the place fully spontaneously. The museum is not overcrowded - at least not on a working day in the end of October. However we caused a small panic to the ladies at the reception. They were incredibly polite to us and upset at the same time that they might be not able to find us at a short notice a guide who would speak a foreign language. One of the ladies disappeared then for a while in the section for the museum stuff. After 10 minutes she returned with red cheeks and announced with a disappointment that... there is only one guide who could give us a German speaking tour... My German family danced a dance of joy when they have found out.
The story goes on: The lady who found the German speaking guide informed us that we need to wait ten more minutes - the group ahead of us needs to leave the museum building first so that there is no traffic jam at the exhibition and also ... our guide needs to collect his courage. He apparently got a little bit under pressure that he will be guiding tourists in German spontaneously. Ten minutes later a young man approaches us and speaks in a perfect, fluent, very sophisticated German and explains to us the exposition. We were truly impressed by the language competence of a guy who works in a small town somewhere on the brink of Carpathian mountains. So one more encouraging to non-Polish speakers: go visit the place, they will find a solution fitting your needs!
Our guide, named Pawel, was also very well informed when it comes to historical details of the ancient settlement. We posed a lot of questions and he was able to answer them all. Soon he was taking us out of the area of the reconstructed houses to the steep hill. For this reason it makes sense to put on flat shoes when going on this trip.
However, you don't have to be an alpinist to manage the parcours - grid stairs are leading to the top, see below, on the left side.
Parts of fortifications have been reconstructed up there to give an impression of how difficult for invaders the siege of the place must have been.
As you can see by the colors on the following pictures, it is very rewarding to visit the place in autumn.
And from now on, I am going to leave you just with the pictures of the hill to enjoy, I guess there has been enough said. Last but not least, I am going to say thank you to Pawel who was such a good guide!
Here are some links, you might find interesting:
The official site of the museum
Internet site of the network of open air museums
Jaslo seen from Karpacka Troja
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