Our Visit to the Owl Mountain

Community Highlights Europe Our Visit to the Owl Mountain

We had heard and read about another great attraction in this area: Sowią Góra (“the Owl Mountain” in English) Viewpoint (“Punkt widokowy Sowia Góra” in Polish). Of course, it was something not to be missed, and we headed for that place after visiting Węgrów. We reached it by driving along the road from Węgrów to Liw and turning left after the bridge over the Liwiec River. The Liwiec is the left tributary of the Bug, and its length is 142 km.

Sowią Góra Viewpoint is located about a mile outside the village of Jarnice not far from the road leading to the village of Wyszków.. The location name is Jarnice-Pieńki. Jarnice is a village picturesquely located between sandy hills, overgrown with pine forest, and the Liwiec River, which flows along the typical Mazovian plain with extensive meadows on both banks.

Sowia Góra is a popular place for kayakers, paragliders and other tourists. The visitors have always admired this viewpoint and made sure it offered very beautiful views in the Węgrów County. Sowia Góra is a rather high hill from where you can have a beautiful view of the Liwiec Valley and a large and irregular bend of the winding river. This is where lots of local residents and tourists relax in the period from spring to summer. The landscapes are unusual for this area since you can see the vast meadows, the castle and the church in Liw, as well as the windmills located in the Korytnica commune visible from the hill.

The Wild Beach as seen from Sowia Góra, Węgrów County

The Owl Mountain is known by kayaking enthusiasts who sail along the route from nearby Wyszków. They often choose this area as a place of rest. There is so-called Wild Beach there.
Sowia Góra also has a very old history associated with this particular hill. Local inhabitants of the area can tell you about the legends dating back to pre-Slavic times shrouded in mystery. For primitive peoples, this hill, which clearly dominated the surroundings, was aallegedly a place for performing rituals in honor of the sun and trees and the idols enchanted in them. Legends say that witches flew here from even several hundred kilometers away to decide the fate of local residents. For centuries, people talked about the buried treasures or a pot of gold, while others would tell you about the knights sleeping at the foot of the hill. Archaeological research confirmed the existence of a fortified settlement several thousand years old at the foot of the hill.

Thus, Sowia Góra is an extraordinary place, shrouded in the aura of a mysterious past. At the beginning of our era, there were human settlements here, then a cemetery with a cult circle of erratic boulders, then it served as a place for pagan rituals associated with Kupala Festival. Later, a lot happened here. Each ongoing war in these lands provided an opportunity for invaders to shell the opposite side of the Liwiec. The Swedes, the Prussians, the Russians and the Germans built their artillery positions on the hill and fired from there.

They say the hill was originally much higher, but a large part of it was dug up and carried away because it consists of excellent quality gravel. Thanks to the numerous birds and unspoiled landscape, the entire Liwiec valley has been included in the Siedle-Węgrów Protected Landscape Area and included into the "Natura 2000 Area" (Birds Directive).

The Provincial Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management installed a tourist board on the hill that offers us a lot of information tells us about this place. The place is called valuable tourist attraction and an educational base of the Liwiec Valley. It is not only a viewpoint, but also a place for bird watching, a place to spend time, have picnics and practice various sports such as paintball. There is a paintball stadium at the foot of the hill. I understand that sport games are a must, but not in this case. It was not much fun to stand on the hill and ponder trying to enjoy the landscape and at the same time hearing the shots of the paintball guns down the hill… I must confess I was very upset about paintball there...
There are two wooden pavilions on the hill far from the paintball stadium. This is where we had our picnic there. There are also and a couple of pavilions downs the hill opposite the paintball stadium.
In case you are late for coming back home, you can stay at the village hotel at 210 Jarnice. It is called “Agroturystyka”. They have 13 beds (PLN 80-100 a night).

Wyszków
On the way back to Siedle, we passed a small village of Wyszków [‘vyshkuv] that has about 300 inhabitants and is located in Liw Municipality of Węgrów County. It lies about seven miles to the south of the county center and 43 miles to the east of Warsaw. We visited the well-known temple in this village: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church. The church is known for its paintings created by Szymon Czechowicz and Franciszek Smuglewicz.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Wyszków

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Wyszków

The epitaph of Aleksander Maciej Ossoliński from 1826 on the church tower, Wyszkow

We were very impressed by the Baroque interior of the church.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Wyszków_ the altar

The All-Seeing Eye above the altar of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Wyszków

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Wyszków

The foundation plaque of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Wyszków

You can see the year in Latin: MDCCLXXXVIII on the foundation memorial plaque above the entrance to the church. The inscription reads, “In the year 1788 the Great Pontiff, King Stanislaus Augustus, and Alexander Ossolinski, Count of Tenczyn, built this Church under the name of Holy Cross.»
As I found out later, the construction of the church was launched by Jan Stanisław Ossoliński (1689-1770), and it was completed by his son Aleksander Maciej Ossoliński (1725-1804), whose memorial plaque we saw on the church belfry.

We saw another memorial plaque inside the church. It is dedicated to the prishioners' beloved church dean. The inscription on the memorial plaque reads,
«Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god»
Mat 5:8.
To the blessed memory of Fr. Stanisław Kajetan Werbenko, born in Warsaw on August 3, 1867, ordinated as a priest in 1889, the head of Wyszkow parish for twenty-two years, died in Wyszkow on June 21, 1923.
May he rest in peace"

Next time we have to look at the three brick Baroque wayside shrines dating back to the 18th century. They are dedicated to the following saints: St. John of Nepomuk, St. Florian, and St. Notburga.

The road the near the church in Wyszków

After this village, our hosts wanted to see the renovated manor house in Ostrówek.

Ostrówek Manor House

The information board that stands in the courtyard of the manor house offers some information about this place. It reads, “The manor house in Ostrówek in classical-baroque style. The year of construction: 1923.
The manor house in Ostrówek, built in 1923, is a historic building. At the end of the 1920s, Ostrówek was owned by Stanisław Lipiński. The estate then amounted to 353 hectares. It is currently owned by the Siedlce Commune and has been renovated and restored.
In the past, the Manor was built as a result of the expansion of an older building, a fragment of which survived as an annex to a newer building.
Built in the baroque-classicist aesthetics of the Polish style, the manor from 1923 is the pearl of the Siedlce Commune.
The manor house is a single-story building covered with a hipped roof with an extension on the axis topped with a wavy gable. A columned porch precedes the entrance, composed of two pairs of bulging columns. Today, the manor attracts with its splendor and the surrounding park area.”

To crown it all, we made another stop on the way home. It was in the village of Mokobody located to the north of Siedlce. We paid a visit to St.Jadwiga of Silesia Church and the village park in Mokobody and were pleasantly surprised by the Baroque architecture and the cleanliness of the park and streets of this villsge.

St.Jadwiga of Silesia Church, Mokobody

The inscription on the memorial plaque located to the right of the entrance door reads,
"Ludomir Benedyktowicz
January insurgent
Knight of the Order of Virtuti Militari, painter, poet,
was baptized in this church on 11.08.1844"

Looking at the belfry of St.Jadwiga of Silesia Church, Mokobody

The statue of Virgin Mary and Child Jesus/The church belfry/The statue of St.Jadwiga of Silesia

Admiring the interior of St.Jadwiga of Silesia Church, Mokobody

The interior of St.Jadwiga of Silesia Church, Mokobody

We walked inside the church and admired the sculptures and paintings. You can see the life-size figures of Jesus Crucified, Our Lady wiping tears (to the left of Jesus) and Apostle Saint John wringing his hands (to the right of Jesus).

Walking in the village park located opposite the church, we saw several monuments and memorials.

Relax in the village park of Mokobody

The memorial of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus, the village park opposite the church, Mokobody

The memorial of the fallen Polish officers, Mokobody / The Freedom Fighters monument in the village park
The inscription on the Polish officers memorial reads,
Fight for freedom or die
On October 2/3, 1942 they were dropped in "Lathe" airborne operation to the "Osa" collection facility

• Lieutenant Antoni Jastrzębski, alias «Fallow”
• Major Tadeusz Stocki, alias «Moth”
• Captain Władysław Szubiński, alias «Roof”

To you, homeland
Residents
Grom soldiers

I saw a great video of the village and its church

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Thus, we have visited several villages located to the north of Siedlce: Janice > Jarnice-Pieńki > Wyszków > Ostrówek > Mokobody. Wyszków and Mokobody boast of great Baroque churches which are worth visiting indeed.

This featured blog entry was written by Vic_IV from the blog Our Stay in Poland.
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