Park Dolny

In the southern part of the Lower Park you will find the Grotto of 1890, made of fieldstone and dedicated to the figure of the Speaker of the Galician Sejm - Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz. He was a meritorious man, thanks to whom the road connecting Szczawnica with the Red Monastery along the Dunajec River was built, which today is an attraction for many tourists visiting the Pieniny Mountains. In the arcade niche you can see a bronze plaque with the Marshal's image, made by Jozef Nałęcz-Hakowski.

The famous historian Karol Estreicher was critical of the resulting building. He claimed that it resembled a shell for a souk, and that the structure itself would not survive several winters. He was undoubtedly wrong about the durability of the material, as the grotto can still be admired today. A great asset to the site is the vegetation that surrounds the grotto, and the fountain where you can sit and relax on a hot day.

This structure, as its name might suggest, served as a venue for concerts. It can be seen in the lower part of the park, following the park alley along Main Street. Like the other gazebo, this one was also built in the early 20th century and has elements of the Zakopane style. It is built on the plan of a Greek cross, supported on wooden pillars decorated with openwork elements of a lattice frieze and with an arch crowning the main entrance. The building is covered by a tented, broken roof with abutment roofs, the tops of which are decorated with ornaments in the form of the so-called "suns".

When closely following current events in Szczawnica, one can, while strolling through the alleys of the park, witness a concert organised in the musical gazebo. Unfortunately, much more often in the evening hours the acoustics of the park are dominated by disco polo music from the nearby "Chemik" guesthouse.

The "Wanda" mineral water spring is located at the foot of Bryjarka Mountain, above the Chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa, in the northern part of the Lower Park in Szczawnica. The water from the spring has a mineral character (bicarbonate-chloride-sodium (alkaline-saline brine)). It is recommended for metabolic and urinary tract diseases.

The origins of this spring date back to 1867, when it was established on the site of two earlier springs, Aniela and Helena. The mineral water is available to everyone and the draw-off point is located next to the "Chemist" Leisure House. The spring has been carefully enclosed, and a special tap has been installed in the stone wall above the cup-shaped well to facilitate water intake.

The creation of the pond is very much related to the shaping of the area of Szczawnica as a health resort. It was an element of the landscape, used to arrange the park as an attractive place for incoming visitors and still today enhances the image of the park for residents and tourists.

In 2013, at the initiative of Mayor Gregory Niezgoda, ornamental carp and crucian carp were released into the pond. These colourful fish can be carefully watched and photographed, thanks to a wooden pier with red railings built. It is worth remembering that the fish should not be fed

Walk up the steps to the highest alley of the Lower Park, where the charming chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa is located in the shade of the trees. It has not always been a place of worship. The building, built in 1867, was the pump room of the Helena water. It was not until the 1870s that there was an initiative on the part of Franciszek Tomanek, then lessee of the Lower Works, to transform the pump room into a chapel, creating a convenient place for visitors to the spa. It was he who purchased for the newly established chapel a copy of the painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa, a signature lamp, a cross, and a tablet altar with the relics of the martyrs St. Felix and St. Marcelina, which adorn the interior of the chapel. Since 1894, an altarpiece by Władysław Łuszczkiewicz can also be admired inside.

Masses in the Roman Catholic chapel are held in July and August at 4 p.m. Although it is rare to admire the building from the inside, the facade can be seen every day. A row of wooden chairs set up in front of the chapel even allows you to sit down and admire this small, centrally built architectural structure. Particular attention can be drawn to: the stone plinth, the circular skylights filled with masquerade rosettes, the cornice, the wooden signal box and the two inscriptions placed on plaques on the left and right sides of the chapel, suggesting the spa purposes of the visitors: "Holy Virgin who defends Czestochowa brightly be the healer of the sick" and "Faith-filled prayer will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up James 5:15".

In the upper part of the Lower Park, by an alleyway on the slope, there is a picturesque gazebo in the characteristic 'Zakopane' style overlooking the picturesque Lower Park. It was built on the plan of a Greek cross, covered with abutment roofs, decorated with arcaded friezes and a "sun" motif in the gables, which are different for each arm of the cross. A square turret rises at the intersection of the roof ridges and its walls are decorated with an edelweiss motif in a rosette. The entire structure of the gazebo is wooden, built on poles, open and founded on a stone cellar above the "Wanda" spring from the first quarter of the 20th century.

In the landscape of the park, the gazebo looks extremely charming, but climbing up the steps, placed symmetrically on two sides of the gazebo, one will see acts of vandalism inside. The profusion of signatures ruins the character of the building, which only from the outside harmonises with the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside. This makes such a beautiful architectural monument uninviting to stay, but given the magic of the rest of the park, one need not be discouraged.