Every design for Gorlice

The cradle of the Polish oil industry – that is how Gorlice is known across Poland. Ignacy Łukasiewicz, inventor of the kerosene lamp, lived here, and within a few years oil wells spread around the town, with the railway following soon after. Set in the valley of the Ropa at the northern edge of the Beskid Niski, Gorlice was founded in the reign of Casimir the Great by Dersław Karwacjan, whose family held it for generations as a busy centre of crafts and trade.

The town's sharpest memory belongs to the First World War. During the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive its streets became a front line; Gorlice changed hands again and again and was left in ruins. Today the month of May has a gentler echo: every year around the May bank holidays the Gorlice fair draws visitors from across the country and abroad. The Skansen Przemysłu Naftowego "Magdalena" keeps the oil story alive, the Galeria Sztuki Dwór Karwacjanów carries the founder's name, and the Pomnik Dersława Karwacjana stands for the town's beginnings.

However far you go, Gorlice stays the place where the Ropa runs through the valley and the wooded Beskid hills close in around home.