The Bieszczady Mountains - God’s own country (Poland section)

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The Bieszczady Mountains are at the far south east corner of Poland bordering Slovakia and Ukraine. Home to rich wildlife suchas wolves and bears, the Bieszczady National Park has been declared a UNESCO bisophere reserve. It's also the kind of place where people drop out: Komańcza's parish (for want of a better description) has one the highest number of PhDs in the country!

Travelling to the Bieszczady Mountains - off Season - that is a challenge because public transport is seen as out of fashion in provincial Poland. Nobody wants to fund it. Even German Railway’s online European timetable can’t keep up with the (usually negative) changes. So, if you are travelling off season to the Bieszczady here’s how to do it: High summer is ok: there is a direct train from Kraków to the Bieszczady on a train conveniently called “Bieszczady” which takes you to Sanok and Zagórz, where buses continue up to Komańcza, Wetlina and Ustrzyki Górne. Warsaw has a direct overnight train but couchettes only in high season - it is bit risky to overnight it otherwise.

So off season, it is worth getting a fast train from Kraków to Rzeszów (or else a bus to Sanok, but it’s less comfy, and in the Kraków area, traffic jams are now becoming famous.) Now the bus down to Sanok from Rzeszów can take a while (1½ to 2 hours), but it's fairly scenic. And there is the bizarre to look out for: there are two roadside restaurants with vintage aeroplanes in the garden on the way. Just south of Brzozów there is a *very* high density of shrines with Virgin Marys in glass boxes.

We left Kraków to the accompaniment of thundery downpours and found a convenient, albeit slow, bus south to Sanok from Rzeszów. To our dismay there were no trains out of Sanok to Komańcza, as Polish Railways, in their wisdom, have cancelled services on the line to Łupków on the Slovak border. We arrived in Komańcza and had a fine stroll up the slope where there is a new waymarked path: it was full of cowslips and herbs as the fields are now managed for their ecology rather than agricultural production.

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Photos

Komańcza, Orthodox Church
Taken a while ago, hence the snow on the roof!