The Bieszczady, from wooden churches to the połoniny

The Great Bieszczady Loop

You get around the range on the Great Bieszczady Loop, about 140 kilometres of narrow roads linking Lesko, Ustrzyki Dolne, Ustrzyki Górne, Wetlina and Cisna. After Lutowiska, the villages grow further apart. Forest covers almost everything, and the road climbs to the Wyżna Pass, at 872 metres, facing the high pastures.

These high pastures are called połoniny. They are ridges covered in tall grass, above the forest, which turn russet from September. October brings the golden autumn of the beech woods. From the Wyżna Pass, a yellow-marked trail climbs in an hour and a quarter to the Połonina Wetlińska and its refuge, the Chatka Puchatka, at 1,228 metres.

To the north, Lake Solina is the largest reservoir in Poland by volume. You walk along the top of the dam, then carry on to Polańczyk, the sailing harbour. At Majdan, near Cisna, a small narrow-gauge forest railway runs from May to October, with open carriages.

The people, though, were driven out. From 1944 to 1946, some of them were deported to Soviet Ukraine. In 1947, Operation Vistula scattered those who remained across northern and western Poland. In 1951, a land swap with the USSR gave Poland the area around Ustrzyki Dolne and Smolnik. Its people were deported to the USSR in their turn. The church at Smolnik, abandoned, was used as a storehouse. It was handed over to the Catholic Church in 1974.

What remains are cemeteries, orchards gone back to forest and signs marking villages that have vanished. In Polish, ‘going off to the Bieszczady’ still means dropping everything. At Turzańsk, in the Osława valley, the Lemko church of 1801–1803, with its onion domes, is also on the Unesco list. It has been Orthodox since 1963 and is still in use.

Bieszczady National Park

Bieszczady National Park protects the highest part of the range on the Polish side. Its highest point, Tarnica, reaches 1,346 metres; you climb it on foot from Wołosate, near Ustrzyki Górne. The park’s beech woods are part of the primeval beech forests of the Carpathians on the Unesco list.

Brown bears, wolves and lynx live in these forests. European bison have been reintroduced; you can see them in an enclosure at Muczne, near Smolnik. Since 2013, the area has also been a dark-sky park.

What not to miss

1. 1The Sanok skansenAn open-air museum of more than a hundred wooden houses, churches and mills, spread over 38 hectares.
2. 2Sanok castleIts museum holds icons from the Carpathians and the largest collection of work by the painter Zdzisław Beksiński, who was born in Sanok.
3. 3The Lesko synagogueA fortified 17th-century synagogue, now a gallery, next to an old Jewish cemetery.
4. 4The Solina damA walk along the top of a dam 82 metres high, between the lake and the San valley.
5. 5The Połonina WetlińskaAn hour and a quarter’s climb from the Wyżna Pass, then a walk along the ridge.
6. 6KomańczaThe wooden convent where Cardinal Wyszyński was interned in 1955–1956; his room is open to visitors.

The Bieszczady in pictures

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A whitewashed thatched cottage and a windmill at the Sanok skansen.

The Bieszczady table

Bieszczady cooking is mountain cooking. People eat proziaki, soda flatbreads baked on the top of the stove, and fuczki, sauerkraut pancakes. Pierogi ruskie, filled with potato and curd cheese, are everywhere.

In autumn, the inns of Wetlina and Cisna serve dishes made with forest mushrooms. You also find trout and forest honey, sold by the roadside.