Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów — Attraction in Warsaw

Yesterday I visited Wilanów Palace with my family, and it truly felt like a journey back in time – to the age of King Jan III Sobieski and the late 17th century.

Our guide gave us a fascinating introduction to the palace’s origins. Jan III, elected king from his hometown Żółkiew near Lviv, never enjoyed living in Warsaw’s Royal Castle. Instead, he expanded a former hunting manor in Milanów, transforming it into his beloved residence. He named it Villa Nova (“new town”), which over time became Wilanów.

The palace was built in the Baroque style, in the same spirit as Louis XIV’s Versailles. Jan III and his wife, Queen Maria Kazimiera d’Arquien (“Marysieńka”), were deeply inspired by French culture – they spoke French at home, and Marysieńka herself was raised in France until the age of four before coming to Poland. She had first been married to Jan Zamoyski, and after his death became the wife of Sobieski.

Wilanów is above all the residence of the victor of Vienna (1683). The king dreamed of establishing a dynasty for his children – something reflected in the symbolic family portraits preserved in the palace. In one painting, Marysieńka appears with her children, accompanied by a lion (Sobieski’s power and courage), a dolphin (the heir, symbol of succession), and an eagle (the majesty of the Polish Commonwealth). Together, these elements conveyed the idea of continuity and dynastic ambition, even though in Poland the throne was not hereditary but elective. After Jan III’s death, Marysieńka was forced to leave the country with her children, as the Saxon Wettin dynasty secured the crown.

The palace later passed into the hands of powerful noble families such as the Sieniawskas and Potockis, and remarkably survived both the partitions of Poland and even the Second World War. During the German occupation, Hungarian allied troops were stationed in the palace, which spared it from the destruction that devastated most of Warsaw.

The guide also reminded us how harsh the 17th century was for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: wars raged almost without pause (supposedly only 100 days of the entire century were free of fighting), and a cooling climate even froze the Baltic Sea, allowing Swedish troops to march across the ice during the infamous Deluge.

Our visit to Wilanów was not only a beautiful walk through a Baroque residence but also a history lesson – filled with stories of the king, the queen, their dynastic hopes, and the turbulent fate of the Commonwealth. This place truly allows you to feel the spirit of old Poland and its...

Be careful/ wary if you have a pram or need disabled access to the Palace. We had a really bad experience with rude, unhelpful and obstructive staff. The first three individuals sitting inside in view of the disabled access door studiously ignored us (thinking we had come to the wrong entrance when we had not) and scrolled their phones until eventually reluctantly gesturing to me (although not helping at all to solve our problem, plus what they were saying was incorrect as they had not bother checking what was actually happening). Then the next person was really unhelpful, albeit polite, and the other two were downright rude. They made all manner of excuses, tried to shame us into leaving a small baby's pram outside on a freezing, wet day (how can one expect people to put a small baby back into a wet, snowy pram?!) and eventually they said we could not enter, despite us being well within 15 minutes of the entry time on our ticket. I think because they couldn't be bothered on a cold, rainy day and they wanted to go home. So disappointing. Being used to having to persevere to enter places, I tried to explain multiple times - with varying degrees of exasperation - but the staff were rude and made out I was being ridiculous, when it was all entirely unnecessary and I was not asking for anything that would have jeopardised a very precious palace at all (we would have been happy to leave the pram in any dry place eg their cafe, a store cupboard, any cupboard or cranny that we could have carried it to without it touching any carpet/ affecting the building at all!!).

The gardens are beautiful and the palace is beautiful from the...

The museum is nice, however the management needs to visit it, as a tourist, too :) just to feel the vibe. All the workers look EXTREMELY unmotivated and unhappy, sometimes almost angry. Why? Don’t like the place? There are many other museums. Tired? There are many other people who would love to work there.

(!!!) museum’s management, PLEASE check the exhibition.

Etiquettes with “WL 307” hanging over the kings face are disrespectful and tasteless. Just visit other museums and check the way information is presented.

Cards with the list of historical objects is hard to read, spot and non-efficient.

The locked room with silver dishes and glass bottles looks messy and brings zero value to visitors. As it again has this tasteless, horrid etiquettes and many objects are too messy arranged inside the room, you may see only the front shelves.

Pictures on the top floor’s narrow corridor are in a horrible lighting and the person who was hanging them has zero art understanding. One picture is small and needs to be looked at from the close distance, then you step behind 2 steps, trying to find the corner where this poorly installed light would present the picture in a beneficial way, then again back to the next small to follow the sport exercises of stepping back again to view the big one. All the corridor long forward and back 😁 Next hall, one Dutch picture of Diana is damaged in the “lips area”.

It was suffocating, it had little signs for visitors, rooms were also not marked/ signed.

There is plenty of space to nicely organise the place making it both educational and nice experience.

And please, put smiles on your...