Garden of the Senses in Poddębice

This is not another weekend idea. This is the idea of spending a moment in peace and quiet, amidst greenery, the sound of water, sharpening the senses while sipping healthful water straight from the spring.

Come, you must come with us to see an interesting place in Poddębice! Yes, in a city that is often overlooked, it remains in the shadow of the nearby Safari Zoo and Uniejow. We’ll show you that it’s worth combining several attractions and, while in the area, take a look at an interesting place such as the Garden of the Senses – the only spa park in the province of Lodz.

The day was to be full of relaxation and rest. We planned to go first thing in the morning to Poddębice to the aforementioned garden, and then to the Uniejow Thermal Baths. However, the weather surprised us and on our way back from Uniejów we decided to visit Poddębice once again to see the garden in the sunset.

Garden of the Senses

The Garden of Senses is a green area surrounding the Grudzinski Palace. It is next to the palace that there is a small parking lot and toilets, from where you can start walking in the park.

The entire area (including the palace) has been renovated and refurbished. This allows us to walk along easily accessible paths, see the renovated palace and drink health water in the former church building. But one step at a time.

The garden itself is more of a place for rest and relaxation than for education and active pursuits (although we did meet a few runners).

It is divided into five sections, within which there are various installations to help explore nature through the different senses: hearing, touch, sight, smell and spatial orientation. However, various accessories, structures and tools are incorporated into the park space, subtly and modestly. They are an addition to pay attention to, relax and simply sharpen your own senses.

And that’s what we liked most about this park. It’s not about a huge dose of knowledge and science – it’s more about paying attention to the world around us, such as through the different structures of walls and walls, flowing and skimming waters, the smells of plants, or the sounds of nature. Importantly, all maps had captions for the visually impaired as well.

There are attractions that require movement and activity, such as bridges and footbridges to practice balancing, bells, echo wells, mini plant mazes, but there are also many static ones where you simply sit in hanging chairs, listen to sounds, or admire the fountains. Unfortunately, some of the installations did not work, or we could not get them to work, because, for example, by design, after settling into such hanging chairs, music should flow from the speakers, and nothing like that happened.

Also worth noting is the aforementioned Grudzinski Palace. Especially if you have seen what condition it was in before the revitalization (you can find photos and videos online). Today, refreshed, well-maintained, clean, without any bohomazes on the walls, it is a gem of Renaissance architecture and absolutely no longer frightens, but actually delights. The House of Culture is located here, but it was not possible to go inside during our visit.

We also mentioned water, which has health properties. If you would like to taste it, there is a pump house in the park, in a brick building that formerly housed a church. You can come here and fill your own bottles with this low-mineralized water, whose springs are about 2 kilometers deep.

Entrance to the park as well as the pump house is free.

And something for children?

As you can probably guess, it was a family outing. But since the emphasis in the park is on exploring the world through the senses, relaxing in peace and quiet, is it a suitable place for children?

By all means! Here children can explore just the different structures, touch them and develop their own senses, listen to the different sounds made by the instruments, exercise their sense of balance on the footbridges, walk on the undulating structural seats, run among the pergolas…. We are even tempted to say that even toddlers will like it! However, there are no colorful, bright, noisy attractions here, which is a nice change from this type of place for children.

However, for those little ones who prefer traditional entertainment, you will find a playground for children of all ages on site :)

What to do in the area?

We mentioned at the beginning that this is not a full weekend proposition, but it is an interesting complement to a weekend stay in the area. You can combine a trip with your children to the Borishev Safari Zoo with a leisurely stroll through the Sensory Garden.

Another interesting option is to connect Poddębice with Uniejow, which is about 15 kilometers away. We wrote about the attractions in Uniejów (including, in particular, the castle, the park and the thermal baths) in a separate post.

This is a good time to mention that there are thermal pools in Poddębice as well, part of the “Recreation and Aquatics Center” complex under construction. The site is already popular with locals, although for now it offers fewer attractions than those available in Uniejów.

Summary

The Garden of the Senses surprised us. We didn’t expect it to be such a quiet, subtle place, yet engaging and intriguing. We will definitely look here again and not only to replenish our water supply :)

The project “Against Exclusion – Land without Barriers in Poddębice – revitalization of the geothermal complex” is co-financed by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund and the state budget under the Regional Operational Program of the Lodz Voivodeship for 2014-2020.