Chatka Trapera

At one time, during the communist era, tissue paper was secretly smuggled across the border, but before the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity trail was created in the 1980s, we used to come here on vacation. Those were times when everything was still full of mystery and uncertainty, but Bielice already had its own unique charm. Later, when the time came for the sacramental "I do" and "I won't leave you until I die," our honeymoon trip to Bielice began. And despite the passage of years, it was still quiet, empty and wild here. The Barani Gorge hid the best strawberries in the entire Klodzko Basin. In the evenings, after gathering hay and taking a refreshing swim under the waterfall, we spent time dreaming about what could be built here. Eventually, after winning a card game, we stayed with this place permanently. In a letter to Mom at the time, I wrote that here, in Bielice, our house would one day stand. And so it happened - twenty years after our first trips to this area. Our house became not only the beginning of our new life, but also one of the foundations of agritourism in Poland. Today, you still can't see other houses from the Aries Gorge, and sheep graze on the neighboring hill, as if time has stopped. We have been associated with Bielice since 1977, when we survived a flood by living in a tent. After martial law, history threw us all over the world - from Seattle to Munich. But, as it happens, history came full circle, and eventually we found our home here in Bielice. We are sociologists, gardeners, mushroom pickers, skiers, dog eaters and cat eaters, and Bielice, located in the heart of the Polish-Czech borderland, has become our place on earth, the one that connects us to our roots.