This is the English version of an article first published in Polish: read the Polish original. It refers to source material: wilanow-palac.pl. The text is our own commentary, not a translation or copy of that source.

On 5 August 1805, Stanisław Kostka Potocki opened the doors of his palace in Wilanów and let ordinary people in, without charging for entry. It was the first time on Polish soil that a private residence with an art collection became a museum open to everyone. 221 years later, on 6 August, the Museum of King John III's Palace at Wilanów does exactly what its founder did: it opens for the whole day without a ticket.

According to wilanow-palac.pl, this year the palace will exceptionally stay open until 18:00, and the park and gardens from 9:00 to 21:00. The programme includes walks with historians (11:00 to 16:00), drawing workshops copying old masters on the hour from 11:00 to 14:00, a scent walk through the Marchioness Lubomirska's apartments at 14:00, and family dance workshops in early 19th century style between 12:00 and 14:00. Costumed characters from the period, herbalists, blacksmiths, coin minters, fencers, will walk the gardens, turning the park into something like a living history lesson for the day. In the evening, between 19:00 and 21:00, there's a ball with a dance lesson for 30 PLN, the only paid item in the whole programme.

Sign up for the workshops (capped at 20 people per session) opened on 23 July at 9:00.

The motto above the palace entrance reads "Cunctis patet ingressus", open to all. The Potocki family had it inscribed over the door in 1805, and they clearly still treat it as a commitment, not decoration.

An anniversary that doesn't just remember, it repeats

Most museum anniversaries work by telling a story: a display case, a film, an exhibit. Here it's different. The museum doesn't talk about the day it opened to everyone, it literally re-enacts it, every year, paying the same price the Potocki family did in 1805, meaning zero PLN for entry. For anyone who normally pays for a ticket to a palace that's quite literally over their back fence, it's one day a year when the distance between "I live nearby" and "I've been inside" disappears without opening your wallet.

6 August is a Wednesday, so it's not an event for a full day off, more something you can fit between work and evening if you live close by. And in Wilanów, almost everyone reading this lives close by.