SHORTLY ABOUT BACOWKA

"Bacowka" (the Baca House) on the Rycerzowa mountain (1120 m above sea level) is a mountain refugee in the Beskid Zywiecki Mts., 35 km south-west of town of Zywiec and 115 km south of city of Katowice, the capital of the province of Silesia (wojewodztwo slaskie) in southerh Poland, just next to the Slovakian border.
We are attending you the whole year. We offer accomodation in 33 beds in a building which is, in exception of the cellar, completelly made of timber in a very tradicional way. We have two-, three- ,four- ,five- ,nine- and ten- bed rooms. In each of them there are shelves, coat hangers, a mirror, chairs, two blankets for a bed, and, in some of them, tables. Some of the beds are double-decker. The whole building has a central heating. If free beds are missing there are still possibilities to sleep on timber - made benches or on the floor in a sunny dinning room.
The main attraction of the dinning room is a magnificent view towards the rocky, alpine - type Tatra mountains, which you are able to see straight from the southern windows. The decoration of the dinning room is arranged in a traditional, mountain way. The central part of it takes a mantelpiece with a fireplace. You can often hear guitar strings' play around it. We have also toilets, renovated in autumn 2001, with four washbasins, two WC and two showers with hot water twenty-four hours a day at your disposal.
As well as a nice place to sleep we offer tasty, hot dishes (also vegetarian food) made in our refugee kitchen. Everyone can find something for oneself in its menu, irrespective of costs. In our offer we have also sweats, cold drinks, juice, beer, post-cards, maps, guide-books and many other articles useful on the hiking. The bar is open from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m., and sometimes even longer. For groups, if arranged in advance, we prepare whole-day, delicious, home-made food. We have also self-service kitchen with a washbasin. As one of few mountain refugees we have no electricity, though. For lightening the building we use an oil set that generates 220 V electricity as well as 12 V accumulators. When you want to relax, you can borrow chess and the other board games, cards, a good book, a ball and in the winter - a sledge and the other staff to slide down slope over snow on the slopes of Wielka Rycerzowa Mountain. If you like to hike with your own tent, we offer you a place near the building to camp with all refugee's fitting at your disposal. If you like to visit us with your pet, we make no problem.
During the whole year we organise different entertainment, to begin with slide-shows, when people talk about their adventures in different countries of the world as well as nights by the bonfire, when we play music, sing and dance, sometimes even to the dawn.
You can reach us on foot, by mountain bike or by ski thanks to marked trails (look at the map) and you can be sure you won't get bored (look at the tourist attraction).
We hope when you visit us you will like the countryside and the atmosphere of the real mountain refugee that you find in the Bacowka. Then you will visit us more and more, not only as a "virtual" visitor and you sing with us, looking together at the fire: "...my life is only it the mountains, above the plain's roof..."

See you soon !!!

Landlords of Bacowka!!!

TOURIST ATTRACTION

Beskid Zywiecki (Zywiec Beskid Mts.), South Poland, the highest part of the Northern Outer Carpatian (Beskidy) it is a mountain range not crowded by tourists. When you walk here, through beech-spruce forest and mountain meadows, you can fill the nature that has not been changed by human yet. In such a meadow, near the top of Wielka Rycerzowa (Great Knight Mountain - 1226 above see level), there is, adjust to the landscape, our wooden mountain refugee - Bacowka. You can see from this very place breathtaking panorama of the mountains: Lipowska, Rysianka, Pilsko and Babia Gora, huge Tatra range, region of Podhale, as well as Nizke Tatry (Lower Tatra) and Mala Fatra (Small Fatra) ranges in Slovakia. Three minutes from the Bacowka, in the Halna pass, there is another view point with the panorama of Beskid Slaski (Silesian Beskid), Beskid Maly (Small Beskid) and the mountain ranges in Czech Republic. When the air is really clean, what happens more often in the autumn and the spring there are possibilities to see Gorce and Beskid Sadecki far in the east.
You will experience unforgettable moment when you observe the sunrise over "the see of the clouds", just from the window of your sleeping-room. You will also have possibilities to admire the Tatra and Babia Gora Mountains in the moonlight.
Our Bacowka is placed in the protected area of Zywiecki Park Krajobraozowy (Zywiec Landscape Park), and there are also three nature reserves nearby. The first and the nearest one is called "Dziobaki", it protects the natural Carpatian beech forest with trees over 120 years old. The second one, "Muncol", was created because of flowers of snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis). The last of them, "Oszast" is the area where the primeval Carpatian forest is possible to see. These are not completely restricted areas and it is possible to reach them easily from our mountain refugee keeping the marked trails. The forest are full of blackberries and mushrooms, you can collect the full bucket of them in a short time, if you only want. When you walk through forest you may be lucky to see a deer or a hare, you can notice the goshawk or even the lynx and hear the woodpecker or the cuckoo.
In the summer, near the Bacowka, you can meet a real "baca" (a shepherd) with a flock of sheep. If you are kind enough, he will show you how local mountain cheese, like oscypek and bunc, are being made and you will have possibility to try them.
Besides the tourist attraction it is important that the Bacowka is on the cross-roads of several picturesque tourist trails. So we are a good start to make one-day trip. The area nearby is good for hiking and mountain cycling, and in the winter there are good condition for skiing.
A half an hour of walking from Bacowka by yellow-marked tourist trail you can reach the tourist border pass to Slovakia, on the Przyslop pass. It is open the whole year from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m. (in the winter till 4 p.m.). From the border you can walk to the village Vychylovka in Slovakia, where you can visit Open-Air Museum of Kycuce Village, opened from the beginning of May to the end of October. Beside the water-mill, wooden church, old inn and wooden huts, its main attraction is a trip by old steam narrow-gauge railway.

Clean air, breathtaking landscapes and hospitable people are awaiting you!!!