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A shepherd’s life is similar in all mountains: entire months on high pastures called hala spent grazing and guarding flocks assisted by the indispensable shepherd dog, taking care of sheep, milking and producing cheeses. Production is only the senior shepherd’s task, as he is the only one who knows the secrets of curdling milk to produce the exceptional cheese oscypek. His helpers, young shepherds, guard the sheep. Although this life takes on different shades on different mountain pastures, depending on specific customs and shepherds’ experience, the essence remains common to all: taking care of the grazed animals, protecting them from wolves and producing milk products. Polish highlanders share the oscypek recipe with their Slovak neighbours as in the mountains everything has the cross-border quality.
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Nearby Krakow, between Niepołomice (with spectacular Baroque parish church chapels and representative royal hunting lodge) and Bochnia (with its oldest, still working salt mine, former basis for royal budget) spreads a forest. Today, it being divided by evenly designed paths, it is harder to imagine violent hunting, also for big game, which took place here centuries ago. One step into a side alley leads us however deep inside the extraordinary, rich forest, partly bright and tall, and partly thick and dark. No other walk provides similar relaxation and nowhere will you get closer to primeval nature.
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32 square kilometers of airborne sand between Krakow and Katowice, with dunes formed by the wind even a century ago when this area was larger, with occasional mirages: Błędów Desert, the only desert in northern Europe. Its history is inseparably connected with old times as it was created in the result of intense clearing of trees (needed as charcoal for the nearby mills) and since the Middle Ages has been a natural element of the landscape. In the 20th century it was mainly used by the army, during the Nazi occupation the German troops of Afrika Korps trained here, and part of it is still used as a training ground. The desert has had its career in the cinema, featuring as Egyptian sands in Faraon, the remarkable 1966 production by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. Today it is a unique place for walks and excursions, hiking and horseback tourism, admired for its nearly African landscape. To retain its desert characteristics it became part of the Natura 2000 environmental protection programme.
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Beyond Krakow’s western bounds spreads a land of mystery: karstic rocks created a picturesque landscape, full of astonishing formations, frequently crowned with castles erected on hill tops, constituting the so-called ‘Eagles’ Nests Trail’. Miracles do not only hide on hills but also within them, inside, where water-carved caves meandering around mountain hearts are still to be discovered. Poland even owes its king’s life to one of them: it is here that Prince Ladislaus the Short, who later, in 1320, ascended the Krakow throne, hid from assassins.