One of the places most frequently visited by tourists in Podlasie is the Bialowieza National Park. It is not an exaggeration to say that you can hear many languages from various parts of Europe. The Białowieża National Park attracts so many people every year thanks to its unique character, rich history and developed tourist infrastructure. Together with the Belarusian part, it covers the areas of the last primeval temperate wilderness in the world.
The oldest national park in Poland
The Bialowieza National Park is the oldest national park in Poland. It was created in 1932 to preserve this unique forest complex that was once the hunting grounds of the rulers of Poland and Tsarist Russia. The difficult moments of the forest passed during both wars, experiencing the robbery policy of the German occupier, but after the end of World War II one of the first decisions of the new authorities was to restore the status of the forest to the territory of the forest. A turning point in the history of the park took place in 1979, when the Białowieża Forest was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In 1992, the eastern Belarusian part of the forest complex also joined her position.
Bialowieza National Park – a bison refuge
The uniqueness of the Bialowieza National Park is evidenced by its landscape values and species of animals and plants in some cases living only only in the park. Every year, so many tourists choose the Białowieża Forest as the destination of their vacation to see the monumental primeval forest, see the bison in the wild (which, contrary to appearances, is not so simple at all) or to see in the treetops extremely rare species of woodpeckers. The richness of the park’s fauna and flora concerns not only their species diversity, but also a large number of individuals of individual species. There are so many bison in the Bialowieza National Park and its surroundings that they must be resettled to other forest complexes. The hospitality of the forest also favors other animal species such as deer, wild boars, deer, elks, lynx etc. The Białowieska Forest also stands out among other Polish forest complexes with a relatively small percentage of conifers in the forest stand.
Tourism in the park
The Białowieża National Park, although resorting even to strict protection, is haunted by crowds of tourists. This is favored not only by the unique nature and landscape of the forest, but also by the constantly growing tourist base. Tourists who choose the forest for the purpose of their holidays and decide to spend their holidays there can count on a wide range of accommodation. The accommodation base, concentrated in Bialowieza and Hajnówka, but also scattered around many other towns within the Bialowieza Forest, offers tourists accommodation on a wide price scale, from youth hostels, through tourist farms, to hotels with high luxury. In addition, tourists arriving in this area are waiting for bicycle rentals, carriage rides, horse rides, exhibitions, museums, wildlife parks, cyclical events, etc. From Hajnówka a narrow-gauge railway runs through the forest, the forest can also be visited by traveling on numerous walking, horse or bicycle routes. Tourists on vacation to the Bialowieza National Park are also tempted by travel agencies advertising the park in their catalogs and handling trips from classic organized to a variety of specialized ones.
Bialowieza National Park, created mainly to protect the unique forest complex of the Bialowieza Forest. It perfectly reconciles this function with tourist service and promotion of the region. It is especially recommended for all those who like to spend their holidays actively, but it is best to combine exploring the park and forest with surrounding areas that offer tourists as many albeit less advertised attractions.
