Lubaczów: Churches, Cemeteries and Park History

Lubaczów brings together striking religious buildings and cemetery monuments with a park whose paths, waterways and mature trees reveal another side of the city. There is also a museum with exhibitions about the city and its region, as well as a 189-kilometre route that begins in the centre. Those planning a trip with cultural discoveries will find a range of themes here, which can be explored individually and incorporated into their own itinerary.

Park paths and a wider route perspective

The park of the Zespół Zamkowo-Parkowy combines avenues and paths with waterways and ponds. Its mature trees include black alders and several small-leaved limes, which are protected as natural monuments. The park is a place for recreation and leisure; its facilities also include a playground and outdoor fitness equipment. Families can include the playground as a specific part of the park in their day’s plans.

The castle hill is also part of the site’s historical character. It contains traces of settlement from before the period of the brick castle, as well as the remains of a manor complex built on the initiative of Count Pawłowski in the early 19th century. History and present-day leisure activities meet here, without the park being understood solely as a historical site.

The Trasa VI Lubaczowska is on a different scale: it is 189 kilometres long and begins at kilometre 0 in the centre of Lubaczów. It runs across the Tarnogród Plateau and mostly through the Południoworoztoczański Landscape Park. Its length makes it a route project in its own right and clearly distinguishes it from a visit to the paths in the city park.

Reading exhibitions and architecture

The Muzeum Kresów has three permanent exhibition rooms devoted to the history of Lubaczów and its region, the material culture of the villages of Lubaczów, and the history of the Kresy. There are also two temporary exhibition rooms and a library with a scholarly collection. The subject matter therefore ranges from the city and its surroundings to the former eastern territories of the Republic of Poland. Check the museum’s current information about opening hours and possible closures before your visit.

The Greek Catholic Church of St Nicholas shows how its architecture is divided into individual components: its floor plan is shaped like a Latin cross, the presbytery has a three-sided apse, and a dome rises above the crossing of the nave and transept. The church was designed by Wasyl Nahirny and built in 1883 on the site of an older wooden church. The brick bell tower was built in 1843 and altered in 1862. There is also a church complex comprising a church and bell tower on Grunwaldzka Street, entered in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship’s register of monuments in 1988.

Buildings outside the religious sites also tell the story of the city’s different functions. The railway complex on Kolejowa Street consists of a station building and a water tower; it was added to the voivodeship register of monuments in 1990. The town hall stands along the western frontage of the market square. The single-storey, plastered brick building with a gable roof was listed in 2011. Those who pay attention to details can thus view religious, municipal and railway-related architecture side by side.

Cemeteries as places of remembrance

The soldiers’ cemetery on Cicha Street lies on a slight rise and is laid out in a regular rectangle. A wide main avenue divides it into two main sections, and a metal grid fence surrounds the grounds. The western section contains ten mass graves for soldiers of various nationalities who fell in the First World War, as well as people who died in the local military hospital. In the northern section, graves commemorate Polish soldiers under the command of Józef Kustroń who fell in 1939, and Soviet soldiers who died fighting the UPA. A monument to the airmen of the 31st Reconnaissance Squadron of the “Karpaty” Army also stands there.

The epidemic section of the cemetery on Cicha Street preserves stone tombstones commemorating those who died of cholera; most of the several dozen surviving markers date from 1916 to 1918. Some were made in Bruśnie stone-carving workshops. An old stone cross can also be found there. It dates from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and was moved here from a burial mound on Orzeszkowa Street that no longer survives.

Other cemetery sites have different points of focus: chapels built after 1859 stand along the main avenue of the municipal cemetery on Kościuszki Street. They retain their original building forms and parts of their fittings. Lubaczów’s Jewish cemetery contains about 150 stone matzevot. The oldest date from the first quarter of the 17th century; some of the richly decorated stones show traces of polychromy.

Include Powiat lubaczowski in your plans

Those who extend their travel plans beyond the city will find more landscape highlights in Powiat lubaczowski. The “Nad Tanwią” nature reserve, established in 1958, covers about 41 hectares and protects sections of the Jeleń and Tanew valley, including small waterfalls. At the bend in the Tanew near Rebizanty, 24 rapids known as “szumy” stretch over 400 metres. These details give the wider travel area its own connection to nature; they should be distinguished from the attractions in Lubaczów.

Discover more destinations: Świdnica, Milkow, Gmina Lubaczów, Narol, Basznia Dolna, Niżański, Stalowa Wola, Jasielski.

Go to the broader travel overview: Subcarpathian Voivodeship.