Carpathian Outlaws' Trail

Everyone knows Janosik and the Tatra highlands, but the creator of the Carpathian Outlaws' Trail (Szlak Zbójników Karpackich) argues that the real capital of Carpathian banditry was the Żywiec region. That idea grew into a cultural route that links around 1,000 places connected with outlaw lore – castles, inns, wayside shrines – across six countries. Żywiec is its natural starting point.

A trail you won't find on the trees

The route was devised and documented by Leszek Młodzianowski, a tour leader and mountain guide from Żywiec. It is a themed route for walkers and drivers, roughly 4,500 km long, running through Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania and Hungary. For now it is marked only virtually, so don't look for painted stripes on tree trunks. The trail is open-ended: anyone can suggest a forgotten outlaw site that is not yet on the list. According to its author, building it took four years and around 10,000 km of driving.

Żywiec rather than Podhale

The author points out that the image of Podhale as the cradle of banditry was created by 19th-century writers who were busy discovering the Tatras and Zakopane. The Silesian and Żywiec Beskids, where outlaws were most active, never found a great author to tell their story. A good example is Jerzy Fiedor, known as Proćpak, from Kamesznica, one of the best-known Beskid outlaw leaders. According to old accounts, for three years his band raided manor houses, inns and parish houses along the borderlands of Silesia, Moravia and Slovakia. Proćpak was executed on 26 January 1796, and a summary court sentenced 28 of his companions to death as well.

What to see around Żywiec

• Komorowski Castle in Żywiec – listed by the project as the site of an outlaws' torture chamber.
• Kamesznica – a village that was one of the strongholds of Beskid outlaws in the 17th and 18th centuries, and Proćpak's home.
• The old inn in Jeleśnia – a wooden inn, probably 18th-century, on the old route from Żywiec to Orava, one of only two authentic inns of its kind left in the Beskids.
• The outlaws' shrine in Zawoja Policzne – one of the author's examples of outlaw tradition below Babia Góra.
• Jacenty Ignatowicz's Regional Music Room in a historic manor in Żywiec-Moszczanica – a collection of highland instruments, including Żywiec bagpipes, small fiddles and shepherds' pipes.

Tripto tip

See the trail as inspiration for your own road trips rather than a single signposted route. Żywiec makes the best base: in one day you can combine the castle, Jeleśnia and Kamesznica, then spread the rest of the Beskids over further outings. The trail's own website, zbojnickiszlak.pl, is currently being rebuilt, so the project description is available on zbojnickie.pl. Keep in mind that many outlaw stories are legends – here the line between history and myth blurred long ago.