Krobielowice

Poland, Poland

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Krobielowice is a small village in southwestern Poland's Lower Silesia region, about 20 km northwest of Wrocław in the Bystrzyca Valley Landscape Park.

First mentioned in 1321 under Polish Piast rule with a 14th-century fortified manor that evolved into a Renaissance palace around 1570-1580—later expanded with Baroque towers—it was gifted in 1814 by Prussian King Frederick William III to Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher for his role in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo and Leipzig.

Blücher died there in 1819 from a riding accident, and his mausoleum on a nearby pine hill—erected 1846-1853—was desecrated by Soviet troops in 1945, leaving an empty tomb amid the postwar Polish border shift. Renovated in the 1990s into a luxury hotel with restaurant, golf course, and gardens by a Blücher descendant from New Zealand, it retains historic features like arcaded courtyards, marble stairs, and farm outbuildings from 1878.