Sulejów Landscape Park
It was established in 1994 to protect the rich flora and fauna as well as the unusual river landscape of the Pilica River, the Sulejów Reservoir and the remains of the former The Pilica Forest. It has an area of 16 707 ha (including buffer zone 39 569 ha).
It is located in Poland, in voivodeship of Lodz on the Piotrkowska Plain and the Radomsko and Opoczyńskie Hills, and its hydrographic axis is formed by Pilica along with Sulejowski reservoir (Lake Sulejowski).
The area of the Park rises to the south and reaches the village of Bąkowa Góra 282 m above sea level
Under the Quaternary cover, the Mesozoic and Cretaceous deposits (Bąkowa Góra, Czantoria) are exposed in places: clay shales, sandstones, marls and quartz sands (they contain over 90% of pure quartz mined in Smardzewice for glassworks).
They are lying next to it Nagórzyckie Grottoes: a unique remnant of the deep exploitation of soft sandstone.
The forests of the Pilicka Primeval Forest cover 69% of the Park's area. Pine forests, dry and fresh, and mixed forests, mainly pine and oak forests, dominate. In addition, there are riparian forests, alder forests, oak-hornbeam forests and very rare luminous oak forests. Water accounts for a significant area (14%). The rest of the area is taken up by arable land, meadows (often wet), peat bogs, sand and calcareous grasslands.
The rich flora includes, among others: 12 species of orchids, 4 species of club moss: king longhorn, twinflower, horse lupine and whorl. In the avifauna, among others: bittern, common goldeneye, greylag goose, ducks, spotted weevil, ringed plover, little tern, black stork. Butterflies alone are represented by approx. 30 species. From mammals: beaver (introduced in 1985), moose (passer-by), otter, weasel.
Areas of outstanding natural value are under protection in 11 nature reserves: Common, Black Lyug, Boscage, Jakson, Jawor, Apple Tree Forest, Like, Rain, Hard, Big Field and Blue Springs with a total area 624 ha. Most are forest reserves, but, for example, the Blue Springs are the most valuable landscape and water reserve in central Poland.
Near Smardzewice has been located since 1934. The Bison Breeding Center with the area of 56 ha. There is a herd of about 20 bisons from the Białowieża line.
In the villages, we can admire the characteristic construction of wooden houses with porches (Stobnica, Błogie), and chapels by the roads.
There are 10 manor and castle parks in the Landscape Park. The oldest manor parks were established in Majkowice and Bąkowa Góra in the 14th century, others in the 18th and 19th centuries (e.g. in Goleszach, Zajączkowo, Szarbsko).