Museum of the History of the Polish Peasant Movement: The Yellow Inn on Wilanowska

On the old road to Wilanow stands a villa that has been an inn, a wartime lookout and, for the last four decades, a museum. The Zolta Karczma (Yellow Inn), a neo-Renaissance villa built in 1852-53 to a design by the Italian architect Francesco Maria Lanci, began life as the Belle-Vue inn on the newly paved road to the royal palace. According to the city's museums portal, the poet Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski is said to have coined its current name, and the villa's tower served insurgents as an observation point during the Warsaw Uprising.

A museum of the countryside

The Museum of the History of the Polish Peasant Movement was founded here on 8 March 1984. The city portal puts its collection at more than 62,000 exhibits - described as the only one in Europe to document the peasant movement so comprehensively. Highlights named by the portal include 163 letters of prime minister Wincenty Witos from 1923-24, a 1677 royal decree of Jan III Sobieski, 48 seals used to forge German documents during the occupation, more than 2,300 paintings (including works by Jan Styka, Teodor Axentowicz and Wlodzimierz Tetmajer) and some 400 organisational banners. Sculptures of peasant-movement leaders stand in the surrounding garden.

Visiting

The museum is open Monday to Friday, 8:30-15:30 (weekends by prior phone arrangement). Tickets cost 4 zloty, reduced 2 zloty; Thursdays are free. Organised groups book by phone: 22 843 38 76 or 22 843 78 73.

Getting there: Metro Wilanowska (M1) is a 10-minute walk, and buses 108, 139, 217, 700, 710 and 724 stop at Dominikanska on request. The museum notes it accepts cash only.