Out where Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine meet, the eastern Carpathians fold into long, rounded ridges covered in beech forest so continuous that from a high point it looks like a green sea. Udava is one of the Slovak pieces of the UNESCO Primeval Beech Forests listing, protected within Poloniny National Park, the most easterly and least populated corner of the country. Here the forest has been left to its own rhythms for a very long time: giant trees, fallen trunks covered in fungi and moss, a dense understory of young growth wherever light breaks through. Wolves, lynx, brown bears and even European bison roam the area, and the dawn chorus in May is unforgettable.
The human history is just as layered. This was the land of the Rusyns and the Boyko and Lemko peoples, with wooden churches dotted through the valleys, many of them listed by UNESCO in their own right. After the Second World War, entire villages on both sides of the border were emptied by deportations and resettlement, and in places you will find only a cemetery, an orchard gone wild or a lone church to mark where a village stood. On the Polish side, the Bieszczady mountains became a byword for wilderness for exactly that reason.
Riding here is about solitude rather than speed. Roads are narrow, sometimes bumpy, winding along valleys and over passes with few villages and even fewer cars. On the Polish side, the Great Bieszczady Loop through Cisna, Wetlina and Ustrzyki Górne is a classic, with long flowing sections and wide views from the passes. On the Slovak side, the roads around Snina and the Starina reservoir, which supplies drinking water to much of eastern Slovakia, are quieter still. Watch for wildlife, forestry trucks and wet leaves, and remember that the weather can turn fast in the hills.
Services are sparse. Snina, about twenty kilometres away, is the nearest town of size, with fuel, shops and places to eat; Cisna on the Polish side is a small village with guesthouses and a station. Fill up whenever you can. Simple inns serve hearty soups, pierogi on the Polish side and bryndzové halušky, potato dumplings with sheep's cheese, on the Slovak side.