Hello everyone. My first post here was on Australia's top peak - Mt Kosciuszko and I guess I made a faux pas by not introducing myself first. So this is my apology post - a proper intro plus few pictures from a place in my home country, Poland - called Stone Town.
I work in IT and in the pre-corona era I used to travel a lot for my company and saw a bit of the world. I am a curious person so I took every opportunity to explore the places I visited. While in Europe all that I had were typically evenings after work, but in countries such as Australia or Japan I would have a weekend at my disposal.
I am also passionate about mountains and hiking. The first 40 years of my life were spent mostly sitting in front of a computer but then something clicked in my head and now I am making up for it, hiking whenever I can. I have lost some 25kg, gotten a better shape and now I enjoy hiking very much. Posts will come, but if you are impatient, go ahead and browse my private blog - over 70 places visited or routes hiked.
Enough about me, now the promised post on "Stone Town" - a group of scenic rocks in the foothills of the Carpathians in Poland. The post comes originally from my Polish blog and has been reposted in English on Publish0x, where it got over 600 views in a couple of days. Still the content and photos are originally mine. Hope you like it, too! I did enjoy the recent trip to a place which is not widely know even in my country.
Far, far away... well, not that far after all, almost in the middle of Europe, in south-estern Poland, there's a Stone Town. As the legend goes, once upon the time the town was a normal, bustling living place. But its inhabitants were involved in all kinds of evil and the whole town was turned to stone.
Tour of the town starts, where else, in its Town Hall. It is situated on a cliff over a river flowing in a deep gorge. The legend has it that if the waters of the river, which by the way is called "White River", raise high enough to cover the rock , the spell will be undone and the town will be back to life. Looking down from the "Town Hall" cliff, it doesn't look very likely. But who said that legends were realistic?
Stone Town - view from 'Town Hall' cliff
Entering the main part of the Stone Town, we come upon two rocks called Lower and Upper Fortress. It takes some imagination, but one can see how well fortified the town was.
Stone Town - Lower and Upper Fortress
Further along the trail we can see an Eagle (viewed from an angle it does look like an sitting eagle), a Badger (I wouldn't guess), Hell Entrance (a unique rock in the complex - one with reddish coating) and more - a total of 14 fantastically shaped rocks.
Stone Town - "Eagle" rock
Stone Town - "Badger" rock
Stone Town - Hell Entrance
My favorite rock however was called "the Liar". The rock looks like... anything you can imagine and so tourists always argue what it actually is. This dilemma will not be solved until the Town Hall gets washed by White River and all rocks come back to life. Who knows what that rock would become?
Stone Town - "Liar" rock
There's a marked trail, stretching some 2km, so it makes an easy stroll, even for my father aged 70 and having knee problems. The terrain however is not flat, we descend into deep gorges only to ascend a steep opposite slope to see another rock. 2/3 thru the trail, there's a shortcut leading back to the parking. My party however didn't cheat on shortcuts and we walked the whole trail. Our reward was a gorge with a waterfall called "the Witch". It's not clear whether it's the witch who turned the town into stone. If so, then who turned the witch into waterfall? This mystery remains unsolved.
Stone Town - path leading to a waterfall
Stone Town - the waterfall
The whole trail - return - took us some two hours. It was a cold and cloudy November day. Perhaps the light was not that great, but still the place is worth visiting. On our way home we came across Snufkin's House (remember the novel "the Moomins"?). Apparently it is his winter location, as everyone knows that in autumn Snufkin leaves the Moomins' valley in Sweden and goes south.
Snufkin's House, Jamna, Poland
Marcin aka Snufkin
