Attractions

Interesting historic artifacts:

• collator family matroneum above the sacristy;
• late-Baroque side altar decorated with a richly carved wooden frame around the image of St. Joseph and patron saints in medallions warding off disease;
• Ecce Homo image from the beginning of the 17th century;
• two female reliquary herms from the 16th century;
• tower monstrance from 1640;
• pax from the first half of the 17th century;
• Gothic reliquary with a crystal can.

• Gentle and peaceful horses ideal for learning to ride.
• Modern covered manège.
• Paddocks located in forest surroundings.
• Qualified and experienced instructors.
• Café.

In 1924, Ojców was considered a health resort of public utility. Despite having this status for decades, it has remained more of a tourist destination (even the headquarters of the directorate of the Ojców National Park are located here).
Interesting sights:

• ruins of a castle built by King Kazimierz the Great in the second half of the 14th century
• museum of the Ojców National Park in the buildings of the former guest houses Pod Łokietkiem from 1860 and Pod Kazimierzem from 1885
• so-called old spa park from the end of the 19th century (until 1939, Ojców was a health resort with hydrotherapy as the main therapeutic method)
• PTTK ethnographic museum in the Bazar Warszawski villa
• “On the Water” Chapel
• Ciemna Cave
• wooden houses and villas from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the so-called Swiss style
• Kraków Gate and the “love spring”
• several kilometres of hiking trails with viewing points
• from mid-September, “Ojcowska Złota Jesień” tours

A narrow 20 m long crevasse leads to the entrance (it is the remainder of a corridor whose ceiling collapsed). The Main Corridor leads to the 25×10 m Knight’s Room. The largest room of the cave is known as the Bedroom, with dimensions of 20×30 m. The combined length of the corridors and chambers is approximately 270 m and the temperature is 7-8°C. In 1927, it was declared a historic monument. Łokietek’s Cave has been adapted to accommodate large groups of tourists. Since 1987, it has been fitted with wooden stairs and electric lighting. It is visited by more than 90 thousand people every year.

The previous church was founded by Judyta, the wife of king Władysław Herman. The current building was erected between 1601 and 1604, adapting the previous construction, as evidenced by its irregular plan. The founders were Jakub Tomaszewski, Bończa coat-of-arms, and Barbara Pisarska, Szreniawa coat-of-arms, or Kacper Giebułtowski. In 1604, the church was consecrated by bishop Bernard Maciejowski.
Interesting historic artifacts:

• on the southern façade, the Mannerist portal bears the foundation table with information about the consecration in 1604;
• a portal with Renaissance dressings;
• Gothic tomb slab with carved depictions of Stanisław Oraczowski and his wife Barbara;
• main altar with a 1623 copy of the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa;
• marble baptismal font from 1666;
• monstrance from mid-17th century;
• Renaissance pax from the beginning of the 17th century.
• pacyfikał renesansowy z początku XVII wieku.

The church is a log wall building with vertical boarding and shingle roofing. By the nave, there is a Baroque polygonal steeple with a lantern. The interior features a Renaissance polychrome painting from 1562 and from the mid-17th century. The church altars were made in the 17th century. The church has coffered ceilings.
Interesting historic artifacts:

• Gothic painting of our Lady of Modlnica with Child from 1460-1470 in the main altar;
• tabernacle shaped like a small shrine made between 1533 and 1536 by the Renaissance sculptor Giovanni Maria Padovano of red Hungarian marble;
• baptismal font made from black Dębnik “marble”;
• 17th century pulpit;
• epitaph of Stanisław Kucharski (d. 1619).

Next to the church there is an 18th-century wooden belfry with a post frame construction and bells made in 1498 and 1542.

From the point of view of archaeology, the Nietoperzowa Cave is known as an Upper Palaeolithic site dating back 38,000 years ago. It served as a camp for cave bear hunters. The hunters from the Jerzmanowice area, who were already homo sapiens, left behind flint arrowheads.

The first mention of the cave comes from 1853. Research in the second half of the 19th century confirmed the existence of intensive settlement in the region already in the Neolithic era (about 7,000 years ago). Archaeologists found fragments of vessels and tools as well as traces of fireplaces. The cave is interesting from the point of view of palaeontology. The alluvial deposits revealed, among others, bones of cave bears, hyenas and other animals who lived this area in the glacial period. In the 19th century, tourism saw a rapid growth. More and more visitors would arrive in Ojców for the waters, and some of them were eager to see the already well-known Wierzchowska Cave, which had been was one of the first caves in Europe to handle tourism, with lighting using Chinese lanterns and prepared guides.

In the 13th century, many armed skirmishes took place near the monastery, and the castle turned out to insufficiently safe, so at the beginning of the 14th century, the Poor Clares asked king Władysław Lokietek for a transfer to another place. In the 15th century, the monastery in Grodzisko was abandonded and over more than two centuries it fell completely into ruin. In the 17th century, the Poor Clares once again were interested in their former home, mainly due to the ongoing process of Salomea’s beatification. In place of the old monastery, they erected a cross, and in 1642 the chapel of the Assumption of the BVM. In 1677, Fr. Sebastian Piskorski, professor of the Kraków Academy and a canon from Kraków, was appointed the prebendary of Grodzisko. Between 1677 and 1691, he built a Mannerist complex of architecture and sculpture, commonly referred to as the hermitage of the Blessed Salomea. It consisted of an hermitage, prayer houses, a church and the house of the prebendary, forming the shape of the letter L. This layout has survived to the present times.

Between 1377 and 1608, the castle was the seat of the Szafraniec family, whose well-known representative was the Kraków Voivode Piotr Szafraniec. Some later representatives of the family made their living as highwaymen, using the castle as their base for attacks on merchants passing through the Prądnik Valley on the road between Kraków and Silesia. As a result, Krzysztof Szafraniec, the grandson of the first owner, was beheaded on the Wawel Hill in 1484.
Between 1542 and 1580, the Gothic castle was transformed into a Renaissance residence. In the 17th century, a bastion fortification system was added during the times of Michał Zebrzydowski. During the Swedish Deluge (1655), the castle sustained severe damage, and suffered in a fire in 1718. It was rebuilt as a seat of the Wielopolski family in 1768. In 1787, they hosted King Stanisław August Poniatowski.