Things to do in Mazovia & Podlasie
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Kurowo & Uhowo
The main starting points for exploring the park are the tiny hamlet of Kurowo and the village of Uhowo. Kurowo sits on the left (western) bank of the Narew, connected to the outer world only by a rough road, which rarely sees a passing car. Its central point is a late-19th-century country mansion that houses the Narew National Park Headquarters and a small exhibition on the park's natural history.
There's no restaurant so bring your own food or time your visit to coincide with the Podlasie Honey Feast (last weekend of August) on the last weekend of August. It's the biggest party on the national park's calendar, with beekeepers and local folk artists gathering to promote t…
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Exploring Biebrza National Park
With over 200km of water trails crisscrossing the length of the valley, the best way to explore the park is by boat. The principal water route flows from the town of Lipsk downstream along the Biebrza to the village of Wizna. This 140km stretch can be paddled at a leisurely pace in seven to nine days. Bivouac sites along the river allow for overnight stops and food is available in towns on the way. The visitors information centre in Osowiec-Twierdza can provide maps and information.
You can also hire a kayak for just a few hours or a day and cover part of the route; a handy two-hour stretch runs from Goniądz to Osowiec-Twierdza (kayaks can be rented from Goniądz' camping …
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Spas - Day of Transfiguration of the Saviour
Grabarka's biggest feast is the Spas (Day of Transfiguration of the Saviour) on 19 August. The ceremony begins the day before at 18:00 and continues with Masses and prayers throughout the night, culminating at 10:00 with the Great Liturgy, celebrated by the metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in Poland. Up to 50,000 people may come from all over the country to participate.
On the 18 August the surrounding forest turns into a car park and camping ground. Cars and tents fill every space between the trees. Despite this wave of modernity, the older, more traditional generation comes on foot without any camping gear and keeps watch all night. The light of the thin candles adds…
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Museum of Fighting & Martyrdom
Treblinka is the site of the Nazis' second-largest extermination camp after Auschwitz. Between July 1942 and August 1943, on average more than 2000 people a day, mostly Jews, were gassed in the camp's massive gas chambers and their bodies burnt on huge, open-air cremation pyres.
Following an insurrection by the inmates in August 1943, the extermination camp was completely demolished and the area ploughed over and abandoned. The site of the camp is now the Museum of Fighting & Martyrdom. Access is by a short road that branches off the Małkinia-Sokołów Podlaski road and leads to a car park and a kiosk that provides information and sells guidebooks. Across from the kiosk, th…
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Pentowo
Storks are a common sight in towns and villages across Podlasie, where artificial platforms are carefully constructed for the lanky white birds to build their nests upon. But Pentowo, a collection of farm buildings 2km northwest of Tykocin on the road to Kiermusy, holds the title of Poland's Stork Village. In 1991 a hurricane ripped through the village, snapping many of the trees like twigs, and over the ensuing years storks began to nest in the broken treetops.
Storks are notoriously inept at building their homes, so the locals decided to give these bringers of happiness and babies a lending hand, and eight platforms were built. Today Pentowo can boast 23 nests and at t…
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Treblinka II
It's a 10-minute walk from the car park to the site of the Treblinka II extermination camp, alongside a symbolic railway representing the now-vanished line that brought the cattle trucks full of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. The huge granite monument, 200m east of the ramp, stands on the site where the gas chambers were located. Around it is a vast symbolic cemetery in the form of a forest of granite stones representing the towns and villages where the camp's victims came from.
Unlike Auschwitz, nothing remains of the extermination camp, but the labels on the plan showing the original layout speak volumes: 'Building for Sorting Gold and Valuables'; 'Storehouse for Victims'…
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Royal Oaks
About 3km north of the Bison Reserve are the Royal Oaks , a score of ancient trees, some over four centuries old. There's a short walking trail that winds its way among them. Each of the trees is named after a Lithuanian or Polish monarch; the biggest of the lot is Stefan Batory, 5.1m in circumference, 40m tall and 450 years old.
To get here, take the motor road from Białowieża towards Narewka (it begins beside the PTTK office, and has blue trail marks) for 5km to a crossroads. Turn right; the oaks are 200m along the dirt road. You can also hike north from the Bison Reserve on a yellow-marked trail (3km). If you take a cart to the Bison Reserve, you can visit the oaks on …
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Tykocin Museum
Renovated after the war, the synagogue is now the Tykocin Museum. The interior, with a massive almemar (raised platform on which the reading desk stands) in the centre and an elaborate Aron Kodesh (the Holy Ark where the Torah scrolls are kept) in the eastern wall, has preserved many of the original wall paintings, including Hebraic inscriptions. Adjacent to the former prayer room is a small exhibition containing photos and documents of Tykocin’s Jewish community and objects related to religious ritual, such as elaborate brass and silver hanukiahs (candelabras), Talmudic books and liturgical equipment.
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Grabarka Crosses
The story of the Grabarka Crosses goes back to 1710, when an epidemic of cholera broke out in the region and decimated the population. Amid utter despair, a mysterious sign came from the heavens, which indicated that a cross should be built and carried to a nearby hill. Those who reached the top escaped death, and soon afterwards the epidemic disappeared. The hill became a miraculous site and a thanksgiving church was erected.
Since then pilgrims have been bringing crosses here to place alongside the first one, and today the hill is covered with around 20,000 crosses of different shapes and sizes.
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Park Pałacowy
At the end of the 19th century, Park Pałacowy was laid out around a splendid palace built for the Russian tsar in 1894 on the site of an ancient royal hunting lodge once used by Polish kings. The Russian Orthodox Church, outside the eastern entrance to the park, was built at the same time. The southern entrance to Park Pałacowy, beside the PTTK office, leads across a fish pond past a stone obelisk, which commemorates a bison hunt led by King August III Saxon in 1752. The royal bag that day was 42 bison, 13 elks and two roe deer.
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Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum, which features exhibitions relating to the flora and fauna of the park (mostly forest scenes with stuffed animals and a collection of plants), the park’s history, and the archaeology and ethnography of the region. The permanent exhibition can be seen only by guided tour, which adds flavour to an otherwise static museum but is a tad expensive if your group numbers are small. The viewing tower provides terrific views over the village, and just north of the museum you will find a grove of 250-year-old oaks.
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Museum of Agriculture
Set in the grounds of a former estate, it consists of an early-19th-century palace, stables, coach house and other outbuildings that are now exhibition halls. While these are attractions in their own right, it’s the 40-odd wooden constructions that are the stars here, and collectively they constitute one of the country’s finest skansens. The buildings, from across Mazovia and Podlasie, include the likes of simple peasant cottages, large manor houses, granaries, barns and working mills.
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Northern, Middle & Southern Basins
The park can be broadly divided into three areas: the Northern Basin (Basen Północny), the smallest and least-visited area of the park; the Middle Basin (Basen Środkowy), stretching along the river's broad middle course and featuring a combination of wet forests and boglands; and the equally extensive Southern Basin (Basen Południowy), where most of the terrain is taken up by marshes and peat bogs. The showpiece is the Red Marsh (Czerwone Bagno) in the Middle Basin.
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National Championships in Scything Boggy Meadows for Nature
One of the most celebrated festivals in the park's calendar is the National Championships in Scything Boggy Meadows for Nature, held on the second weekend of September. Teams from all over the country turn up with scythes in hand, all eager to be the quickest to cut 100m of bog meadow. It's both a fun day out and ecologically sound - if the grass was left to grow, birds would have trouble nesting in the meadows.
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Bison Reserve
The Bison Reserve is a park where animals typical of the puszcza, including bison, elks, wild boar, wolves, stags and roe deer, are kept in large, ranch-style enclosures. You can also see the żubroń, a cross between a bison and cow, which has been bred so successfully in Białowieża that it is even larger than the bison itself, reaching up to 1200kg.
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Convent & Church
A convent and a church are hidden among woods on top of the hill. The 18th-century timber church went up in flames in 1990, but it was rebuilt in a similar shape to the previous one. The convent is more recent, established in the aftermath of WWII in an effort to gather all the nuns, scattered throughout the country, from the five convents that had existed before the war.
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Kayaking & Boating
The most interesting area is the northwestern part of the park, where the watery labyrinth of channels is most extensive. The best way to get a taste of the marshland is by kayak or boat. Paddling through narrow, snaking channels and ponds with water so crystal clear you can see fish and plants to a depth of 2m is a highlight of a trip to the park.
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Strictly Protected Area
Dating from 1921, the Strictly Protected Area is the oldest section of the national park, covering an area of around 4750 hectares, bordered to the north and west by the marshy Hwożna and Narewka Rivers, and to the east by the Bielawiezskaja Primeval Forest National Park in Belarus.
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Restauracja Tejsza
Restauracja Tejsza In the basement of the Talmudic house (enter from the back), this basic eatery serves excellent and inexpensive home-cooked kosher meals, including some of the best pierogi in the country. There’s also an outdoor seating area.
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Kaylon
Kaylon, an agency that organises canoeing expeditions through the park from May to September. It charges 150zł per day for a guide, 26zł for kayak hire, 32zł for a three-person Canadian canoe and 1.40zł per km for transport.
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Treblinka I
A 20-minute walk from Treblinka II leads to another clearing and the site of Treblinka I, a penal labour camp that was set up before Treblinka II, where remains of the camp, including the concrete foundations of the demolished barracks, have been preserved.
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Monument to Stefan Czarniecki
In the middle of the spacious Rynek (called Plac Czanieckiego) stands the Monument to Stefan Czarniecki, a national hero who distinguished himself in battles against the Swedes. The statue, from the 1760s, is one of the oldest secular monuments in Poland.
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Holy Trinity Church
On the eastern side of town stands the 18th-century Baroque Holy Trinity Church. Two symmetrical towers linked to the main building by arcaded galleries overlook the spacious Rynek (called Plac Czanieckiego).
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Red Marsh
The showpiece of Biebrza National Park is the Red Marsh in the Middle Basin, a strictly protected nature reserve encompassing a wet alder forest that is inhabited by about 400 elks.
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Alumnat
Next to the Holy Trinity Church is the squat Alumnat, the world's first hospice for war veterans, dating from 1633. It still provides food and lodging, but nowadays for tourists.
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