Free guided tours in Drawa National Park. Check the dates!

May and June are the best months to discover the secrets of Drawa National Park. On selected days of the week, visitors can enjoy free guided tours organized as part of the Active Education Program in the area of Drawa National Park. It’s an excellent opportunity to get to know this unique part of Polish nature from the perspective of people who know it inside out.

Open days in Drawa National Park – a perfect opportunity to observe nature

Spring, especially late spring, is the perfect time to observe nature up close. And there’s really no better place for it than national parks. Numerous projects combine pleasant trips with educational values, so it’s worth taking advantage of these opportunities as often as possible. Open days in Drawa National Park are one of the most interesting events of this kind.

On the occasion of the planned open days scheduled for May 17, 19, 23, and 30, as well as June 3 and 6 – Drawa National Park invites you to join free guided tours. The routes have been carefully designed and include selected areas of the park, and experienced educators and DNP employees will accompany participants. They will introduce visitors to the world of local fauna and flora in an accessible way, uncovering the secrets of nature that we often overlook in everyday life. Participation in the events requires prior reservation, so organizers encourage planning your visit well in advance.

The Drawa River and its aquatic ecosystem – the heart and soul of the park

Before you visit, it’s worth learning a bit more about Drawa National Park, which is one of the most picturesque and biologically diverse protected areas in Poland. It is located on the border of the West Pomeranian, Greater Poland, and Lubusz Voivodeships, and its heart is the Drawa River. Drawa, along with its tributary – Płociczna, forms the main hydrographic axis of the park, creating numerous meanders and floodplains.

It is the aquatic ecosystems and water-dependent areas that shape the unique character of Drawa National Park. Rivers, lakes, peat bogs, and vast wetlands form one of the densest hydrographic networks in Poland, serving as the foundation for extremely valuable plant and animal habitats. In the humid valleys and along oxbow lakes, you can find rare protected plant species, such as the delicate cottongrass, brown moss, and daphne mezereum. Meanwhile, in the waters of Drawa and Płociczna, there are brown trout, grayling, bullhead, and river lamprey. It’s also a place where beavers, otters, and kingfishers make their homes. Although small in area, the park’s peat bogs and mosslands are among the most valuable habitats in the entire region, playing an important role in water retention and maintaining the local microclimate.

Biodiversity and human impact

One of the greatest values of Drawa National Park is its biodiversity. This area protects nearly 170 species of birds, including rare birds of prey like the white-tailed eagle and osprey. In the forests, you can encounter deer, wild boar, foxes, and wolves – animals that require vast, undisturbed habitats. The park’s flora is a mix of pine forests, beech woods, and oak-hornbeam forests, among which grow protected plants like the Turk’s cap lily, the aforementioned daphne mezereum, and club mosses.

The park’s landscape was also shaped by human hands, leaving irreversible changes, visible today in the form of canals, old water mills, and remnants of dam structures. Numerous historical relics, such as bindugas (old timber depots), signposts, brick chapels, and sawmill ruins, serve as reminders of the area’s past. It’s also worth visiting the church cemetery near Ostrowiec with the ruins of a church and bell tower, as well as the remains of old settlements.

Visiting Drawa National Park is more than just a walk in nature – it’s a chance to understand how this unique landscape works and the role humans play in it. Especially during the Open Days, when the park invites you to participate in expert-led tours, natural knowledge gains real context – seen up close and experienced in the field. Details regarding reservations are available on the Park’s official website.