When we ask kids today where meat and eggs come from, they will answer - from the shop. It is good that at least they do not think that milk comes from a violet cow. Lucky are those people who have families living in the countryside and can show their children a cow at pasture, a pig in a pigsty and a chicken pecking for grain. Unfortunately, such villages are seldom found.

Therefore, we should appreciate places where time has stopped and in which you may see the past in a realistic environment. One such place is Wielkopolski Ethnographical Park (colloquially called heritage park) in Dziekanowice. The majority of the buildings placed there are original. They were relocated from many villages around Poland, where they were taken apart, secured and built once again in the new place. Thanks to this, a new village has been set up where you can find everything you need to live. There are buildings constructed in many different architectural styles, including outbuildings, a church, a presbytery, a smithy and even an inn.

It is amazing how well cared for the place is, and the attention to detail is stunning. Interiors are decorated with folk paintings, furniture creaking from old age and kitchen equipment that looks like somebody just finished cooking.  To make the village even more realistic, behind the houses there are fields, a bee-garden, cabbage beds and orchards. Walking thorough the park, I sometimes had the impression that Kargul and Pawlak might emerge at any moment from one of the houses and start knocking pots off fences and cutting up the sleeves of shirts drying in the wind.

Standing proudly behind the village on the hill are three windmills. Two of them are wooden, and one is a stony Netherlander. If we go through the village via the field between the trees we find a quiet corner with a chapel and part of a cemetery. Further on in the trim garden stands a manor house from the XVII century.

The park is placed in a beautiful hilly area by Lednicki lake. You may combine some sightseeing with a nice walk. This kind of museum is the perfect place for families with children. If you have a bit of luck, you might get a chance to partake in a feast, during which you can try bread from an old-fashioned oven or freshly made plum stew. You can also reap the grass with a scythe or sickle. You can buy quite interesting handicrafts and listen to regional country bands.