PAINTED VILLAGE OF ZALIPIE

Zalipie is a small village located in Lesser Poland in the Vistula Lowland, which, together with the adjacent areas, belongs to the warmest areas of Poland. In the village, regardless of the season, you can enjoy extraordinary views, enjoy the eyes and soul with fancifully composed bouquets of flowers that adorn everything that can be painted: houses, apartment walls, furniture, napkins, clothing, cowsheds, wells, fences and even dog kennels. It all started as usual: the local women had a difficult task to keep the cottages with sooty walls clean, and in the rooms where livestock was kept next to people. At first, the young girls, looking at each other, on the whitewashed walls of a stove, with a brush made of millet or rye, made so-called "Floats", that is, irregular spots. Quite quickly for poor Galician areas, as already in the first decade of the 20th century, Zalipian girls began to use not only floats but also boldly composed patterns, dominated by flowers and swirls, and creativity depended on individual abilities. Today in Zalipie, everything is covered in colourful flowers, and the inhabitants compete in embellishing their huts with beautiful colourful flowers.

TRADITION AND MODERN WORKSHOPS

Experience starts with  learning about the traditions of Zalipie at the “Painter’s House”, where we will take part in the colourful workshops "Tradition and Modernity". As part of the workshop, we will learn how to paint decorative motifs according to the principles of folk aesthetics, maintaining the traditional colours of brown, black and white. We will make a brush from a birch stick, horsehair and a cow's tail. Finally, we will see the technical possibilities of hand-made painting tools, comparing them with the possibilities of modern brushes and paints, painting a clay bell, wooden spoon or spatula. After the workshops, we will go to the local church, the interior of which is decorated, like everything in the village, with colourful flowers. Finally, we will visit one of the farms where the inhabitants will tell us about the local tradition.

Lunch prepared by local housewives, dishes with certified regional products.

MULTICULTURAL TARNÓW

The next stop is Tarnów – known as  little Krakow, a city called the "pearl of the Renaissance", a multicultural centre (before the war, almost 50% of the population in Tarnów was Jewish), moreover, it was inhabited by Roma, the Ethnographic Museum is the souvenir, which is the only museum in Europe devoted to Roma culture. While walking around the city, we will visit the Market Square with a beautiful Town Hall and colourful tenement houses. We will look into the former Jewish Quarter, where you can see Bima in the place of the former Synagogue. We will stop for a coffee in a tram that was brought here from Lviv and used to be part of the Galicia fleet. Tarnów was one of the three Galician cities where trams ran. We will look at the Cathedral and the wooden Church of Our Lady of the Scapular. We will set off on the literary trail and at the end we will take a walk under colorful umbrellas in the city centre. Tarnów is the city of Józef Bem and the first city where independence was declared, it is a place full of history. After Krakow, the most interesting urban centre in Małopolska.

MAŁOPOLSKA’S VINEYARD

On the way back, we will stop at one of Małopolska's vineyards for a tasting. The local climate - the warmest place in Poland and the terrain are ideal conditions for establishing vineyards. A glass of wine surrounded by vines with a story in the background will be the perfect end to your Galician tour.