Čičmany are excellent tip for a trip during your holiday in Slovakia. It is a picturesque village, which is a living natural museum with its unique ancient architecture - painted wooden houses. Čičmany are located in a basin in Strážovské vrchy mountains, at the spring of Rajčianka River, at an altitude of 655 m above sea level.
If you go from Žilina to Prievidza, after driving about 30 km beyond the village Fačkov turn right and then after 7 km ride through mountain valley you will arrive to Čičmany. It is the highest situated village in Žilina district.
Čičmany open-air museum is a common village, where people live permanently. A number of houses in this village historically valuable. A similar village - open-air museum - is a Slovak village called Vlkolínec - unlike Vlkolínec is tourist entrance to the village Čičmany allowed free. Very low entry fee is just for the visit of interior of two dwellings, where expositions are located.
The single-storey folk house, the so-called - Raden house, which was established by Považské Museum in Žilina in 1967. Visitors can view a rich collection of traditional clothing, shoes, tools and work habits. In the second place, the so-called - Gregor's house, is presented the way of life in the twenties of the 20 century.
Čičmany architecture, especially its lower part, recalls gingerbread houses. They are a valuable document of sophistication, craftsmanship and aesthetic feeling of local population. This complex, notable for its stylistic unity was in 1979 declared a conservation area, which makes it suitable for a great trip destination during your vacation in Slovakia.
The first settlers came here probably in the first half of the 14th century, although it is possible that there were also older, transitional settlement matching record "on the New road, which leads from the village Cziczman" in a record of 1272. In times of greatest prosperity of Čičmany inhabited village up to 1500 people, while now the number has dropped just to about 250 people.