around Stary Sacz

Directions are given by Google maps in tablet who knows where the churches are and car GPS who makes a better route. With Google you have to be careful not to get tricked onto a pedestrian road or similar. Today the gadgets have teamed up and point in unison to things that look like cycle roads. Views from there are of course good, fields and villages rolling away into distance. Some roe deer are looking from the roadside.

The church with a long name in Jodłownik should be one of the most beautiful late gothic churches in Lesser Poland but is a bit tired. One window has been closed with tar board and the carvings have some parts missing. There are way too many churches to keep everything in good shape. A rooster cries somewhere.

In Iwkowa the situation is better, the vertical boards have recently been renewed and here is even a phone number that could get one into the church. Unfortunately I’m this time more interested in a toilet. Usually there are no toilets at the churches. Or they are locked.

St Leonard’s church in Lipnica Murowana is one of those that has made it to the UNESCO list. On the door is the phone number of the guide who lives nearby and lets people in. When I call then there’s an answering machine, speaks something in Polish and asks to dial a number, All numbers are wrong. Next to the church grows a huge hollow tree and on the bench speaks a man with beret on the phone. I wait until he ends his conversation and approach then with the question if he speaks English. He does but prefers German. German is fine enough. He also does not understand what the nonsense on the phone and explains that the guides do not want to work on Mondays because usually they work on Sunday and then go to visit someone on Monday. Maybe there’s someone in the rectory. At the same time he thinks that on the picture outside all the main elements are visible and the church isn’t very noteworthy inside. He sometimes plays organ in this church. Otherwise he is a music professor in a Krakow university. Three years more he has to work, at 70 he’ll retire. Curses Putin thoroughly. Has been to Estonia. His son lives in Reykjavik, work in computer business and learns Icelandic. Before he leaves he gives me his CD. It seems that talking to the man was the best this church had to offer so I leave the adventure in the rectory for next time.

The market square of Lipnica Murowa should also be worth seeing. There are big old houses all around. From one of those I get pizza.

Zalipie is a village where people have been drawing flowers on the houses. The houses are not grouped together but stand spread out all over the fields. Weather is warm and nice. In the ditch live a mallard couple and some kind of peacocks fly over the road. I circle half the village. End up with four kilometres. At one hose an old man with a scooter drives into the garden and invites me to take a picture of the shed from inside. From the inside it really is more beautiful. Flowers have been drawn also on wells, lamp posts, doghouses and fence foundations. And beehives.

From the St. Martin’s Parish Church in Zawada is a nice view down on the village and the valley. For a while it even looks like the church door is open but it only leads to the outer walkway that is usually an open space.

The Church of Our Lady of the Blessed Thunder Candle (really) in Siemiechów does not strike me with anything else but especially soft evening light.

When I reach Przydonica then the sun is partly set. The church is nice. This is one of those where it would have been interesting to have a look inside.

Above the blue-tinted landscape rises a huge yellow moon.