Another year in frames caught along the way: from a March sunset over Babia Góra, through spring flowers, a castle at night and Tyniec above the Vistula, to a September dusk with a view of the Tatras.
March: sunset, snowdrops and a castle at night
On the evening of 4 March the sky over Babia Góra turned orange. Babia Góra, the “Queen of the Beskids”, rises to 1,725 metres, the highest peak of the Polish Beskid ranges. A few days later spring came indoors: snowdrops in a vase and the first tulip.
On the evening of 16 March I walked to the castle in Sucha Beskidzka, known as the “Little Wawel”. At night, in lamplight, the walls look nothing like they do by day. Sometimes a castle wall says more than a thousand words, or at least a few old stories.
On 19 March the Toporzysko farm held an open day. In good weather you can see Babia Góra from there as clear as day.
May: orchards in bloom and Tyniec
In mid-May the apple trees and flowering quinces burst into bloom. A black cat lay in wait in the grass. They are said to bring bad luck, but this one posed so patiently that superstition was hard to believe.
On 20 May I went to Tyniec, near Kraków. The Benedictine abbey has stood on its limestone cliff above the Vistula for almost a thousand years: it was founded around 1044. The view of the river from its walls is one of the finest around Kraków.
June and July: flowers
June means lupins, irises and bleeding hearts, whose flowers hang like a string of red hearts. In July the sunflowers bravely leaned towards the sun.
September: dusk over the Tatras
On the evening of 20 September the Tatra Mountains were visible from Parszywka hill. After sunset only a golden glow remained over the peaks, and silence settled in the valleys: the magic of dusk in the mountains, as nature gets ready for sleep. A quarter of an hour earlier the last light fell on Wrzosowy Dwór, whose photo opens this article.
