Sanok, in south-eastern Poland lies directly below the Carpathian Mountains. Once settled by Poles, Jews and Lemkos (a minority group within the Ukrainian community), the town’s history goes back almost 1000 years when it was part of a medieval trade route. The region also features a 70km trail for hikers and cyclists.I spent some time travelling around villages looking for old wooden Medieval churches, deeply influenced by the Greco-Catholic and Orthodox presence in the region.Some display a Greek Cross and onion domes, but the most interesting of the churches combine these features with the Roman forms with elongated naves and steeples. Also some lovely old wooden houses…
What I’ve got to appreciate in my car journeys, is
how Catholic Poland really is —so densely Catholic in fact, that a Google map showing Catholic parishes in the country has barely any empty space. 
Whether it’s a church building, a cross-roads wayside chaplet or a statue on a green mound in the middle of nowhere…there’s always a prayer reminder within metres.
While in Sanok, the no.1 thing to do is visit the Royal Castle and see the special gallery wing dedicated to Zdzislaw Beksinki – a 20thC Polish painter, photographer and sculptor, specializing in the field of dystopian surrealism. (Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society).
Beksiński had no formal training as an artist. He was a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Krakow Polytechnic with a Master of Science received in 1952. Beksiński undertook painting with a passion, working intensely and only whilst listening to classical music. He soon became the leading figure in contemporary Polish art. 
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