The Lemkos, a mountain people of the Carpathians, built their churches of wood, with onion domes and steep shingle roofs stepping up in tiers toward the west tower, and the one at Owczary, in the Low Beskids south of Gorlice, is one of the finest. Built in the mid seventeenth century as a Greek Catholic church, it was later enlarged and painted inside with a rich polychrome decoration. After the Second World War the Lemkos were deported from this region in Operation Vistula, and the church was taken over by the Roman Catholic parish, while the Greek Catholic community has also returned to use it. It is part of the World Heritage listing of the Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine, inscribed in 2013.
The Low Beskids are a gentle range of forested hills, with valleys of meadow and small villages, and the region is full of wooden churches, Catholic and Orthodox, as well as First World War cemeteries. The Battle of Gorlice in May 1915, when German and Austro-Hungarian forces broke through the Russian lines, was one of the great battles of the Eastern Front, and some four hundred military cemeteries were built in the region, a good number of them designed by the Slovak architect Dušan Jurkovič in wood and stone.
Gorlice also has a place in industrial history: Ignacy Łukasiewicz, the pharmacist who invented the kerosene lamp, lit the first street lamp here in the 1850s, and the region was an early centre of the oil industry, with old wells still visible.
The riding in the Low Beskids is lovely: quiet, winding roads through forests and valleys, with little traffic and good views. The roads toward the Slovak border, over passes such as the Dukla, are a pleasure. Surfaces vary, and winter is cold and snowy.
Gorlice, eight kilometres away, has the fuel and food you need, and Sękowa, nearer, has its own wooden church on the UNESCO list. Local food includes pierogi, żurek, a sour rye soup, and Lemko dishes.