In this edition of Holistic Heritage, we are both in Kraków and further afield for the Małopolska Culture Heritage Days 2025, run by the Małopolska Cultural Institute, which this year won a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Awardin the Citizens Engagement and Awareness-raising category.

In the episode, join John Beauchamp and head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub, Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska as they explore three places on the 2025 Heritage Days trail in Małopolska.

This year’s theme is “light”: we visit the cozy village of Zakrzów, some 30km from Kraków near Niepołomice. It is there we go to the Zagroda Apolonia, where a determined Elżbieta Graboś is rebuilding a traditional hut after a fire destroyed the roof in 2023.

At the zagroda (homestead) we also meet veterinarian and fantasy writer Radek Rak who authored a book commissioned by MIK for this 27th edition of the event.

In Kraków, right off the Main Market Square on we visit the Sperling tenement house on Sławkowska Street. There, we meet Christian and Véronique Leprette, the grandchildren of the former owners of the building, and Katarzyna Łomnicka, an art historian and curator of an exhibition on show at the house with paintings by Maria Sperling and Józef Jarema.

We also spend time at the Jerzmanowski Palace in Kraków’s Prokocim district.

Throughout the episode, we meet some of the Culture Heritage Days team from MIK, including: Joanna Nowostawska-Gyalókay, Małgorzata Hordyniec and Dominika Mietelska-Jarecka.