Top 7 Nature & Parks in Bialowieza, Eastern Poland

Reviewed By Givingtree23 - Leipzig, Germany

Based on past reviews on TripAdvisor, we booked an English-speaking tour thru PTTK. While I could spend all day out, my teenage daughter was not so gung ho, so I booked the 4h “most popular tour”. The back and forth via email was a little trying, but they just wanted to check, double-check (and triple-check) that I understood that if no one else requested an English tour on that day, then I would have to pay the full price (~ 400 zloty) for a tour. If anyone else joined in later, they promised that I’d be refunded some portion. Plus, I had to pay in advance by either transferring the money or by sending my credit card details via unsecured email. So, it’s expensive and a leap of faith, but because of the positive reviews here, I was confident they were a trustworthy group. Visiting this park has been in my bucket list for over 20 years, so I was willing to take on the expense. I decided to transfer the tour fee via TransferWise (*much* cheaper and faster than bank-to-bank, can highly recommend). Indeed we were the only English speakers that day (at least with PTTK, which seems to be the main outfit in the park), and so we had Patryck all to ourselves. We absolutely hit the jackpot. He is a scientist in the field, an encyclopedia of knowledge, enthusiastic, friendly, and said that when talking about Bialowieza, he was more comfortable speaking in English than in Polish. We learned a lot from him and had a very enjoyable time. It was an easy, flat walk through the woods, relating historical events to the current situation. The bugs weren’t too bad (but later in the day elsewhere in the park they were horrendous!), sneakers perfectly adequate, long pants/trousers recommended (some narrow paths with stinging nettles). We didn’t see any wildlife other than insects and birds. You have to get up earlier than my teenage daughter was prepared to do! But she, too, was very happy with the tour. Afterwards, we bought a map and checked out some other hiking trails along the Belarusian border. That was also beautiful, but even more so because of all the knowledge we had just gained from Patryck.