Museums 

HOUSE OF WLASTIMIL HOFMAN

23 Matejko St.
Tel: +48 75 717 27 52
Open: visiting the house is only possible when the hosts are home. You can make an appointment by telephone.

Here is a unique opportunity to visit the house of painter Wlastimil Hofman, virtually unchanged since the artist’s death. The interior of this seemingly tiny house holds e.g. the master's studio, with his easels still standing and his brushes and paints still lying on the table. As the current host, Mr. Wacław Jedrzejczak, says, the atmosphere of the place is still filled with the artist’s spirit, which can be experienced in no other museum.

Wlastimil Hofman (1881-1970) - called by Jan Sztaudynger "the painter of the inner glow", recognized in Poland and around the world, the artist - painter, poet, student of Stanisławski, Wyczółkowski and above all, Jacek Malczewski. In 1947, he moved to Krakow to Szklarska Poreba persuaded by Sztaudynger, and lived with his wife in a small house on Średnia St. Hofman grew very familiar with the local community and painted many portraits and small images for the residents, but the main buyers of contemporary art were the local Franciscans. Many of his works have adorned private homes and local churches.

Hofman’s House - Wlastimilówka, soon became a meeting place for the local artistic community. After the death of the painter, following his last will the house with all its equipment was transferred to Mr. Wacław Jedrzęjczak. Current owner provides visitors with access to the painter’s studio, as well as two small rooms with paintings.

HOUSE OF GERHART AND CARL HAUPTMANN next to Karkonosze Museum

23, 11 November St.
Tel: 75 717 26 11
www.domhauptmannow.pl
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Sunday: 9:00 - 16:00
Admission: adults – 6PLN, children – 3PLN

Permanent exhibitions in the House of Carl and Gerhart Hauptmann: 
 1. In the realm of the Spirit Mountain
 2. Products of “Józefina” ("Josephine") glassworks in Szklarska Poreba 
 3. Gerhart Hauptmann and his social circle
 4. Brotherhood of St. Luke (Łukaszowcy)
 5. Carl Hauptmann and his friends 
 6. Wlastimil Hofmann and the early post-war years of the colony
 7. Artists of glass and photography 
 8. The youngest generation of artists in Szklarska Poreba

more SEE HERE

KARKONOSZE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION CENTER

28 Okrzei St. tel 75 717 21 24

Open: Tuesday to Saturday from 09:00 to 15:00.

Everyone interested in sightseeing the natural diversity and richness of the Karkonosze, is invite to visit the Karkonosze Environmental Education Center in KPN.
During the tour, the visitors learn about the world of animate and inanimate nature of the Polish and Czech side of the mountains. Several rooms presented interactive exhibitions of glacial cirques, peatbogs, flora and fauna, forests, natural phenomena and human impact on the mountains. The exhibition is made more attractive due tolarge panoramas, tactile model of the Karkonosze and the languages: Polish, Czech, German and English. Film screenings, diaporamas and various presentations are held in a comfortable screening room. All this is supplemented with temporary exhibitions and a modern library with a reading room. In addition to providing exhibitions in the Karkonosze Environmental Education Center, based on the education employeesm classes are held (inside and outside) for organized school groups, teachers, students and local communities. You can buy books, maps, brochures and other publications promoting the Karkonosze. The object is adapted for the disabled.

Whatever the weather, it is worthwhile to see the "Virtual Karkonosze” multimedia exhibition before moving off to the trail, or after another trip to the mountains.

MINERALOGICAL MUSEUM

20 Kilińskiego St, http://dolnyslask360.pl/miejsce.php?q=253
mobile 607 100 880,
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www.sokolowski-muzea.pl
Opening Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10 - 18:00, Sunday 10 - 16:00, Monday - closed; during the season open daily from 10:00 to 18:00
Admission: adults – 10PLN, pensioners and students – 7PLN (upon presenting a proper document), youth under 18 years – 5PLN, children under 5 – free

The museum operates since 1993, led by the Sokołowski family: Renata, Grzegorz and their son Kazimierz. The parents passion is also shared by two daughters who keep a similar facility in Kamien Pomorski.
The museum in Szklarska Poreba holds about 3,000 exhibits of minerals and fossils from around the world, as well as an exhibit from space – theGibeon meteorite. In front of the museum building, there is a unique in Europe "Carboniferous forest". It consists of fossilized trunks of Dadoxylon trees, which grew about 300 million years ago.
Fossils and dinosaur skeletons are a curiosity found in the museum. It is Poland's largest private collection of reptiles from millions of years ago. Among the specimens, for example, you can see dinosaur eggs from China.

The oldest fossils in the museum are the 570-million-years-old stromatolites from Kaczawskie mountains and the trilobites dating back to the lower Cambrian (530 million years).

The museum also holds the audio-video room, which presents popular science films.

Mineralogical Museum - 360 Panorama

MUSEUM OF THE EARTH – JUNA

9 Jeleniogórska St.
Tel. +48 75 717 32 87,
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www.chatawalonska.pl
Opening hours: from November to March Tues - Sun 9:00 - 16:00, Mon 9:00 - 13:00, from March to October Mon - Sun 9:00 - 17:00
Admission: Free

The museum presents a permanent exhibition of decorative and precious stones from the Sudetes and the world of arts and crafts and products. The collection includes many specimens of minerals from Lower Silesia, Poland and the world. You can see, among others several-kilogram blocks of quartz from the Jizera Mountains, some of the largest excavated agates from Nowy Kościół (Lower Silesia), smoky quartz crystals from the Kowarska Pass, solid banded flint from the Holy Cross Mountains as well as charoite nuggets weighing about a kilogram from the Ural, malachite stalactites from Kenya and tens of kilo amethyst geodes from Brazil.

The Museum of the Earth is selling handicraft products of glass, ceramics, wood, gemstones, raw minerals - collectibles and accessories.

GLASSWORKS

Jakuszyce - Orle, Tel: +48 608 688 408, e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.szklanahuta.pl
Open from May 1 to October 31 Opening hours: from 10.00 to 16.00. Closed on Mondays. Visiting possible after prior arrangement.
Admission: Adults: 7PLN, schoolchildren: 5PLN, children under 6 years - accompanied by an adult are free of charge. The ticket price includes a commemorative postcard.

The only in Poland, and one of the few in the world, exposure of glass paperweights and millefiori glass pieces. You can admire these in the Glassworks - a historic grindery building of Carlsthal glassworks, renovated a year ago.

You can see hundreds of exhibits, mostly paperweights made with laminated glass and filigree glass techniques as well as millefiori, the noblest art of glass-making. The word "millefiori" derives from the Italian "mille fiori" and means "a thousand flowers." Historically, millefiori technique comes from ancient Egypt. For centuries, it has been the most closely guarded secret of glass masters who possessed it. Taken with the master to his grave, frequently forgotten for tens and hundreds of years, the technique would then be reborn and die again throughout history. The rebirth of this technique took place in the first half of the nineteenth century the glassworks of Karkonosze and in Venice.

It is no coincidence that the Museum is housed in a restored building of the former grindery of the Carlsthal glassworks, which was where Franz Pohl began producing glass in the filigree and millefiori techniques. The revival of the art took place in the second half of the twentieth century and continues to this day. The can also holds paperweights that are works of contemporary artists from around the world, as well as the work of the only Polish artist who recreated the millefiori technique in our country throughout the last decade.

More about the Glassworks.