Hidden among the hills of the Beskid Sądecki, close to the Slovak border in southern Poland, the little wooden church at Powroźnik is one of the oldest of its kind still standing in the country. Its oldest parts date from around 1600, and it belongs to the group of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region listed by UNESCO in 2013. A tserkva is an Eastern-rite church, and this one was built by the Lemkos, the Rusyn highlanders who farmed these valleys for centuries until most were forcibly resettled after the Second World War. Today it serves as a Catholic church, but the shape tells its origin story at once: a tower with a bulging onion-like cap, stepped shingle roofs and dark timber walls weathered almost black.
If it is open, the interior has painted walls and an iconostasis, the screen of icons that separates the sanctuary from the nave. Even from the churchyard, though, the craftsmanship stands out: every shingle cut by hand, every joint pegged rather than nailed.
The valley it sits in leads up towards Krynica-Zdrój, the grand old spa town a few kilometres away, famous for mineral water pump rooms, wooden villas and the naive painter Nikifor, whose small, bright pictures of churches and the town now hang in a museum there. Muszyna, just down the road, is smaller and calmer, with the ruin of a castle above the Poprad river.
The riding is a pleasure. Narrow roads follow the streams through mixed beech and fir forest, with gentle climbs, plenty of bends and farms scattered across clearings. Along the Poprad valley the road towards Piwniczna runs close to the river and the Slovak frontier, with steep wooded slopes on both sides. Surfaces vary from good to patched, and in spring you will meet mud on the minor roads from forestry work. Autumn is the season to aim for, when the beeches turn copper and the air smells of woodsmoke.
For practical needs Muszyna, about four kilometres off, has fuel and shops, and Krynica, a few kilometres further, has everything from cafés to grand hotels. Try the local mineral waters at a pump room, or sit with a coffee and a slice of cake, which is a serious business in any Polish spa town.