Cisna lies in the far south-east of Poland, where the Carpathians push up against the borders of Slovakia and Ukraine, and the land turns wild and empty. This is the Bieszczady, a range of rounded, grassy ridges called połoniny rising above dense beech forest, and it is among the least populated parts of the country. Cisna itself is a hamlet of a few hundred people, with a scattering of wooden guesthouses, a handful of cafes and one famous bar. The nearest large town is Snina, across the Slovak border, and on the Polish side, Lesko and Ustrzyki Dolne are the places to stock up.
The emptiness has a history. Before the Second World War these valleys were home to Lemko and Boyko villagers, who lived in wooden houses and worshipped in small timber churches. After the war, the villages were emptied by forced resettlement in the late 1940s, and many were abandoned and left to the forest. Today you can still find orchards gone wild, old stone crosses and ruined foundations among the trees, and a few restored wooden churches that hint at what was lost. It gives the landscape a quiet, haunted beauty.
The riding is delightful. The roads wind through beech woods, over passes and along the edges of broad meadows, past little wooden buildings and herds of sheep. The surface is mostly good, the traffic is light except on summer weekends, and the bends are medium-paced and open. In autumn the forest burns red and gold, and in the early morning mist lies in the valleys like smoke. The forest is the home of bison, bears, wolves and lynx, and while you will almost certainly not see them, animals on the road are a possibility.
Cisna also has a narrow-gauge forest railway at nearby Majdan, which runs on summer days and gives a slow ride through the woods. The famous bar, Siekierezada, with its heavy timbers and its tradition of folk music, is the traditional place to end a day in the hills. Fuel can be hard to find in the high villages, so fill the tank in Lesko or Ustrzyki Dolne. The weather can change quickly, so pack a rain jacket. In winter, the road is often icy and the high passes closed to the unprepared.