Our Poland vacations take in the best sites & off-the-beaten-track places from historic Warsaw & Krakow to the wildlife & scenery of the Carpathian Mountains. All our Poland vacations are provided by operators committed to supporting local people & the environment.
These full and frank independent Poland vacations reviews are from travelers who have booked directly through responsibletravel.com. They are not edited by us or any of the companies we work with. Find the real story, from real travelers below.
Cycling in Tallinn, testing fresh food in central market of Riga, kayaking and pick mushrooms in the Aukstaitija National Park.
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Pass through the heavy oaken gate into the Strict Nature Reserve (SNR) in Poland's Bialowieza Forest National Park and you step back in time. This is a forest such as you have never seen before, a true fairy tale forest, the Wildwood of 7,000 years ago. Oak and ash, lime, spruce and hornbeam soar to 40 metres and more. Cathedral pillars of trees, branchless until they form the canopy far above, "Some people come expecting the eerily dark taiga forest they have in Russia." my guide, Stawek Marczuk, remarked. "Bialowieza is not like that, it is a Robin Hood forest." And he is right, there is none of the forbidding atmosphere experienced in some forests, this is a friendly place. One of the most unusual aspects of the Strict Nature Reserve is the amount of timber on the ground. Ever since the National Park was established in 1932 fallen trees have been allowed to lie where they dropped except where this is across tracks and paths. Then they are sawn by hand and dragged clear with horses. No powered machinery is allowed. A dead oak may last for a hundred years and each soon acquires a wonderful hanging garden of mosses, soft woodland grasses, small flowers and mysterious fungi. Having Europe's largest remaining herd of free ranging bison is probably what makes Bialowieza most famous. They were exterminated here in 1919 and a re-introduction programme using zoo stock was begun in 1929. The first bison were released in 1952 and the herd is now maintained at around 260 animals. Ironically, being grazers, they prefer to live in the exploited forest outside the national park because the felling of trees leaves clearings where grass can grow for a while. They have been fed in the winter since 1810 in order to prevent unnecessary damage to trees and this is when they are easiest to find. Spotting them in summer is almost impossible and, although a poor substitute, the captive animals in the Bison Reserve close to Bialowieza village enable you to appreciate the scale of Europe's largest land mammal. Certainly they could give you a nasty nudge!
Bialowieza Forest covers 1,500 square kilometres but only 40% is in Poland. I say 'only' but it still means traveling through continuous forest for a minimum of twelve miles in order to reach Bialowieza village. Of this the national park is limited to just a sixth and only part of that is SNR. The remainder is exploited forest, unprotected and still containing a significant but declining number of soaring old growth trees which are gradually being cut. The remaining 60% is in Belaruse where it has all been protected as the State National Park Belovezhskaya Puscha. These two national parks were additionally given UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1992, one of a handful of European transfrontier sites.
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