July 15, 2025 – Sanok – museum day

July 16, 2025 Sanok to Dukla – 64 kms – Rynek 2 Dukla – Pokoje I Apartamenty 

Gordon:  We spent two nights in the small city of Sanok.  It’s a pleasant place with a short pedestrianized shopping street, an attractive and well used rynek (public square), a castle, and a pretty public athletics park (should you wish to pump iron al fresco).  But the real reason we stayed two nights in Sanok was to see two museums: an open air ethnographic museum, and an icon museum.

The open air museum is said to be the largest one in Poland.  Like other museums of this type that we have visited, it was organized by cultural areas within the region.  Some of the differences in details in farm building construction used in various areas were lost on us, but we certainly enjoyed wandering through the extensive site.  It was big enough that the mountain farm area authentically had trails leading through the forest from one homesite to another.  The best known portion of the site is a full-size rynek from a regional town, complete with the businesses that would have been represented.

One of the characteristics of Polish open air museums is that they have various businesses on site.  Some offer coffee and ice cream and the usual tourist items, but there is also often a bakery, or, in the case of Sanok, an icon painter.  This one spoke English and provided us with some fascinating information regarding traditional icons.  I asked him, for example, why we were seeing the Virgin Mary clothed in red, rather than the blue generally used in Western Europe.  He explained that blue is the colour used to signify the physical realm, and red the spiritual.  He indicated that in traditional icons Mary has an inner blue garment and an outer red one: she was born human but became divine.  It is the reverse for Jesus, who was always divine, but assumed a human form.

Later in the day we visited the local museum, housed in the castle.  After passing through the rooms full of weaponry and Neolithic pottery shards, a visitor arrives at several floors of icons.  As the icon painter had told us, the 15th and 16th century icons were executed in the traditional, hardline style, but starting in the 17th century icon painters in the region were influenced by Western European art trends and showed more naturalism.

One of the religious depictions that is new to us, and was well represented in the museum, were wooden sculptures of Christ sitting with his head supported by one hand, looking concerned.  We have previously seen this pose described as “Christ contemplating the challenges of life”, but in the Sanok museum they were all described as “Christ, worried”.  I can’t help but smile at this deity concerned about very human challenges.

Today the highlight was the 15th century wooden church at Hachów.  It claims to be the largest surviving wooden church in Europe.  It had been abandoned and was at risk of demolition until some research was conducted a few decades ago, establishing its date of construction (1459) and revealing extensive painted decoration that was almost as old.  The church now as UNESCO designation (though it wasn’t signposted on site) and there were nine conservators working on the paintings during our visit.  Entrance was free, you just wandered in, and there were only two other visitors during the time we were there.  I love traveling a bit off the beaten track.

Ruth’s sister has commented that our pictures leave the impression that all the Polish people live in quaint log homes and worship in ancient wooden churches.  While a surprising number of people in rural areas and small towns do indeed continue to live in century old squared timber homes, and wooden churches are numerous, we are including some pictures of modern apartment blocks and churches for a more rounded appreciation of Poland.

We completed 3,000 kms of cycling today.