ABSTRACT
With a long tradition of a landed gentry in the territories of contemporary Poland, the country sports a high density of palaces, manors and estate, even on a European scale. In different states and styles of transformation, they form a recognizable feature of the Polish countryside. This chapter focuses on the specific situation of historical estates in the Polish part of former East Prussia. The author discusses four different models of transforming former East Prussian estates for contemporary tourism contexts: a miniature palace, a cyber palace, a palace hotel and an evolving heritage palace. The selected palaces challenge common understandings of place-ness and emphasize the symbolic power of the palace. They are places to reframe social relationships in the new Poland and narrate new histories about Germany and Poland.
