Gulbiny

Until 1959 in Gulbiny there used to be remains of a wooden manor house visited by young Fryderyk Chopin. ”On Sunday we visited the Piwnicki family of Gulbiny …“ , he wrote in the letter to his parents.

Ignacy Piwnicki, the owner of the village of Gulbiny, married  Teresa Dziewanowska, a daughter of Juliusz Dziewanowski and Ludwika nee Pawłowska of Płonne in 1789. He died in 1802 and at the end of his life he had used a title of chamberlain of the king of Prussia. He passed the property over to his son Alojzy, who married Brygida Borzewska of Ugoszcz, a sister to Honorata Dziewanowska nee Borzewska. They hosted visitors from Szafarnia and, among them, Fryderyk Chopin. After the death of Alojzy in 1834, the village of Gulbiny belonged to his son Ignacy Ludwik. The wooden manor house with thatched roof was located at the Długie Lake. However, the manor house, which Chopin used to visit,  has longer existed since 1959. Due to its age and lack of maintenance, it became a ruin and, finally, it was dismantled. In the southern part of the village there is still a wild manor park with its old lime, oak, hornbeam and maple trees and a lime tree alley leading to the centre of the village. T

he site of the former manor house and courtyard is now occupied by a small football ground with its goal-posts presently overgrown with high grass and weeds. The park was established in the beginning of the 19th century by Alojzy Piwnicki and its last owners were Bolesław Brzezicki and Helena Brzezicka nee Piwnicka, who were killed by the Nazis in 1939. We leave the park and head to the centre of the village, where we choose a gravel road leading to the north and soon changing the direction to the north-west (offering a beautiful view of Długie Lake). Having walked as far as 2 km, we turn right and go down to a small creek and then up to the modernised Road in the village of Długie and, finally, we take the main road to Wąpielsk.