Lesko is the quiet gatekeeper of the Bieszczady, a small town of around five and a half thousand on the River San, where the flat farmland of the Carpathian foothills starts to crumple into forested ridges. Its market square is wonderfully unhurried, with an old town hall in the middle, and the town carries a deeper past than its size suggests: before the Second World War a large share of the population was Jewish, and the stone synagogue from the seventeenth century survives, now a gallery, while a Jewish cemetery on a hillside above the town still draws visitors. The castle, rebuilt after fires, belonged for a long time to powerful noble families.
For a rider, Lesko is the place where you decide how serious the day will be. Beyond it the Great Bieszczady Loop heads south through Ustrzyki Dolne, Wetlina and Cisna, a road of rolling, well-surfaced bends through beech and fir forest, past mountain meadows called połoniny that turn gold in autumn. Traffic is light except on summer weekends, and the roads are patrolled, so keep to the limits. Wildlife is the main surprise: bison have been reintroduced to these hills, and brown bears, wolves and lynx live in the forests, though you are far more likely to meet a deer on the tarmac at dusk.
Fuel is easy in Lesko, which has several petrol stations and supermarkets, and nearby Zagórz, with its ruined Carmelite monastery on a hill, is useful for supplies as well. Beyond Cisna, services thin out rapidly, so fill the tank before heading deeper. Local cafes serve pierogi, bigos and a strong coffee, and in the villages you will find smoked trout from the clear streams and homemade bread.
The Bieszczady were emptied of people after the war, when many Ukrainian-speaking villages were cleared, and the forest has quietly reclaimed the sites of old farms, with orchards and church foundations standing in the woods. It gives the area a haunted, peaceful feel. Come in late September or October, when the beech leaves turn copper and the mist hangs in the valleys, and the whole range seems to glow.