I like sightseeing and visiting new places, even though my relatives know that the journey itself doesn't belong to my favorite ways of spending free time. My life would be much easier if I could take Harry Potter's Floo Powder and travel hundreds of kilometers in a minute. We try to avoid going to indoor exhibitions with our kids. We make an exception for unique museums such as those where you may touch the exhibits. I really do not like to run after my children repeating all the time "don't touch", "don't sit here", "don't move it" and catching the disgusted look of the museum's workers. Due to this, at the moment we prefer sightseeing outside. Into this category we may put shows, parks, gardens and open-air museums. I really like the last one in particular. Unfortunately I do not have family in the countryside, where kids could learn that milk, butter, and cream don't grow in supermarkets, cows are not violet and chickens are not Angry Birds. We try to show our kids how and where people used to live and work 50 or 100 years ago. I like very much when my father comes with us to such places. He often knows how the particular exhibits worked and tells interesting stories about them. The kids are all ears.

Lately we discovered that we don't have to travel too far from Warsaw to visit a XIX century village. The nearest Open-Air Museum of Folk and Landowning Culture that we know of lies in Kuligów on the Bug river. The creator and owner of this place, which has been open since 2000, is the ethnography lover Wojciech Urbanowski.

New exhibits have been appearing constantly since the first year it was opened. Today you may see here a forge, a village house, a garner, a barn, a cowshed, a little house for nobility and a coach house. The owner says that the main goal of this museum is to show the surroundings of the house for nobility and the occupations from that time. The horse-drawn vehicles and the occupations connected with them (rope maker, wheeler, smith, and saddler) are the pearls of the exhibition. You can also see a rope maker's and carpenter's workshop, a mangle and a carding mill.

The Open-Air Museum in Kuligów is a very picturesque place. It looks a little bit unorganized and almost disheveled. At the same time, you have the impression that everything is as it should be. The houses have fences made from wooden sticks, with dishes hanging on them, a willow hugs the village house, and in the tree hollow sits a tiny, wooden holy sculpture. On the buildings you will find sculptures by Marek Gołaszewski. I was captivated by two metallic goats standing in the grass of a meadow. They are made with great sensitivity and such an exact sense of proportion that you can almost hear their bleating.

For young people who are tired of sightseeing there is a little playground and a canopied tavern with benches where you may prepare a picnic.

There is always something going on at Kuligów Open-Air Museum. As well as casual tourists and school trips, you can find artists, cooks and movie makers. Pictorial settings, culinary workshops, concerts and handicraft workshops are organized there.

The objects on display in the museum were used in such movies as "Zemsta" (Revenge") by Andrzej Wajda or "Jasminum" by Jan Jakub Kolski. In June the open-air museum in Kuligowo was changed into a movie set for Tomasz Bagiński, who shot the movie "Besom" there. It is a part of his "Polish Legends" series.

Therefore, if you decide to visit this picturesque province, you should check in advance whether it is closed to visitors due to some other events.

I recommend it!