Salt Mine in Wieliczka and Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Salt Mine in Wieliczka

   For more than seven hundred years, miners dug salt out of the ground at Wieliczka, and when they stopped selling it in 2007 they were still at it. The deposit is a gift of an ancient sea, a salt layer laid down some thirteen million years ago in the Miocene, and when the Polish kings came upon it, in the Middle Ages, salt was as good as money. At one stage the mine provided a large share of the royal revenue, and Kraków became rich on the proceeds. The mine now reaches over three hundred metres deep, with hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, and was one of the first twelve sites ever put on the UNESCO World Heritage list, in 1978.

   Read the complete Salt Mine in Wieliczka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Salt Mine in Wieliczka is where the day begins. Next is Church of St Leonard.

2. 2. Church of St Leonard

   The hills around Limanowa in southern Poland have a nickname that suits them perfectly: the Beskid Wyspowy, the Island Beskids. Instead of forming a continuous ridge, the summits rise individually from the surrounding valleys like islands from a sea, each one wooded, rounded and separate. Driving through the area is a constant game of spotting the next hump on the horizon. The famous wooden church of St Leonard stands at Lipnica Murowana, in the hills to the north of here, and it is one of the Wooden Churches of Southern Lesser Poland listed by UNESCO in 2003.

   Read the complete Church of St Leonard write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Church of St Leonard comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less.

3. 3. Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less

   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.

   Read the complete Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 115 km into the recorded legs you reach Powroźnik-Tserkva of Saint James the Less. Next is back through Church of St Leonard.

4. 4. back through Church of St Leonard

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Church of St Leonard write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Church of St Leonard, late in the day. Next is Salt Mine in Wieliczka.

5. 5. Salt Mine in Wieliczka

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Salt Mine in Wieliczka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Salt Mine in Wieliczka. That is the ride.