Interesting places

The forest and landscape reserve "Joanna's Hill" includes the most valuable and one of the few fragments of beech forest in the Barycz Valley. The reserve was established in 1962 on an area of 24.23 hectares. It covers the top part of a hill of 230 m above sea level, belonging to the Krośnickie Hills. These hills are a fragment of the Trzebnicki Embankment, which is a belt of moraine hills marking the southern border of the last glaciation. The Krośnickie Hills separate the Milica and Żmigrodzka Kotlina (Milica and Żmigrodzka Basins), which are the two main concentrations of ponds in the Barycz Valley.

The Joanna Hill (also called Wieżyca) is overgrown by complexes of fertile lowland beech and acid beech. Beech reaches the eastern limit of its natural range here. Both beechwood habitats, as well as the Central European oak-hornbeam complex also found in the reserve, belong to the natural habitats protected within the Natura 2000 network.

Several valuable bird species, associated with old-growth deciduous forest, can be seen in the reserve and nearby forests. These include middle-spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers and black woodpeckers, the stock dove and the small flycatcher, which is very rare in the Lower Silesian lowlands. Black stork and red kite, a bird of prey threatened with extinction on a global scale, also have their nests here.

At the top of the hill is a hunting lodge in the form of a tower, called the Odyniec Tower. It was built in 1850 by Rudolf von Salisch. It can be visited in agreement with the Milicz Forestry Commission (the keys to the monument are kept there). Until recently, the tower was an excellent vantage point overlooking the Barycz Valley; now, unfortunately, the panorama has been obscured by growing trees.

A red hiking trail runs through the reserve. A nature trail also runs here.