Poland 6: Podlasie

Bialowieza protected primal forest

Podlasie is one of Poland’s 16 provinces, set in the north east and mainly bordering Belarus.
Podlasie literally means ‘the land close to the forest’ - which is apt because for the next three days most of the photos are green forest!

Thurs 3 May
We stayed last night in a slightly odd hostel/hotel in Hajnowka snappily called “Zajazd Wrota Lasu”; no idea what it means - but it was the closest place we could find to Bialowieza National Park. Early start proved the right decision as we reached the park office just after it opened and managed to bag an English speaking guide - which you have to have in order to enter the strictly protected area of this 150,000 hectare primeval woodland.

Johanna was a very knowledgeable guide - and spoke excellent English. She gave us a very detailed 4-hour tour. History favoured Bialowieza, mainly thanks to royal hunting, resulting in woodland that has been undisturbed for hundreds of years, mainly because Polish royalty and then Russian tsars hunted here. There are even wild bison, reintroduced back in 1929.

Probably the oldest elm tree...

With Johanna’s expert help - we also spotted a few birds

Collared fly-catcher

Wood warbler

Red breasted fly-catcher

And wonderful fungi, moss, ancient fallen oaks etc. It really is the most stunning forest, almost totally untouched by man.

Ancient oak tree

After a welcome picnic lunch - we walked through another section of less protected woodland, seeing just four people in 3 hours. Jess made a brilliant spot of a great spotted woodpecker

Fri 4
We headed north for the morning, to Wigry National Park, bought map and tickets and went wandering alongside wonderful lakes on well marked tracks for a couple of hours.

Orthodox church in Narew, on the road to Wigry

Wigry church

Stork

Sat 5
Having had a very comfy night in a soulless but friendly 3* business hotel by a little conference centre outside Suwalki (bit of a Booking.com error by me!), we had the de-rigeur big breakfast, grabbed picnic lunch at a Delikatasy and drove north to Suwalki Park. We opted to walk around Lake Hancza - Poland’s deepest lake (103m) - and it transpires, a popular sub-aqua site!!