Rural ramblers' rights of way

As I've pointed out on this blog a number of times, the greatest difference between the English countryside and the Polish wieś is in the topography of the village; in England, each village has a heart, centred around the village green, the church, and the pub; roads and fields radiate outwards from this heart. The Polish village tends to be linear, strung out along a straight road. Out from this road, perpendicular to it, run long, thin fields, the result of centuries of land-holdings being divided among the farmers' sons. The flatness of most of Poland contributes to this landscape of strips at right-angles to straight roads.

Now, Jakubowizna and the next village to the south, Widok, fit this pattern. Jakubowizna and Widok are shaped like a capital letter 'E', with three roads parallel to each other running from west to east. The problem for ramblers such as myself is that there hardly any footpaths connecting them.

Below: looking south from the northern road towards the southern one. This might look like a path linking the two, but no - this is private property. It's a farm track and it ends in the farm buildings on the horizon, just metres away from the next road, but fenced off.

This makes it difficult to walk to the shops - there are two in Widok (none in Jakubowizna). Getting there entails a journey of 2.3km, (yellow line on map below), having to loop around because there's no direct footpath through the field. If there were (dotted line on map below), it would cut the journey to 1.3km... (click to enlarge). Just look at all those narrow strips! This is what happens when you don't have primogeniture (where the oldest son gets all the land) as was the case in England.

The field in question (below), outside my działka, lies fallow, abandoned. Electricity cables run over it. Now, what's stopping me from walking 300m across that field as a short cut to save a whole kilometre's trek the long way around? A chicken-wire fence at the other end, that's what. Whoever owns the land doesn't want it becoming a short-cut for their neighbours. 'Dog in the manger' (Eng.), pies ogrodnika (Pol.). And indeed, such is the right of the owner, for legal property ownership is sacrosanct.

And so, Mirabelka, the shop in Chynów, just 1.7km away, becomes my local grocery. Meanwhile, some further observations about walking in the Polish - and English - countryside.

In England, public rights of way are clearly marked and jealously guarded by ramblers. Landowners too take efforts to delineate their property. In Poland, it's more ambiguous. Properly marked szlaki turystyczne are few and far between; there are rural roads of varying quality, there are farm tracks, though what's a public right of way and what's private land is often a moot point. An important legal concept in Poland is that of the miedza, or boundary baulk. This is an uncultivated ridge between two open fields, marking their edges. Polish farmers generally consider it acceptable to walk along these, provided the walker doesn't trample crops.

It is galling when you can see your destination a few hundred metres ahead and you suddenly come across a sign saying 'private property - no entry' - the more so when you've crossed a given field several times in the past and now the sign has just been put up, blocking your way.

Below: between Jakubowizna and Widok. The orchard has been fenced off in a Wild-West style; to the right a footpath heading west (I want to go south). So I ended up having to cut across a field containing two cows and a young bull and then through the building site of an unfinished house before reaching the road at Widok. That house wasn't there a year ago; soon it will be inhabited and a fence will have cut off this rambler's route.

Below: footpath or boundary? New to me... it looks like a farmer has taken a mower to a field of weeds - but why? Access to another, cultivated, field in the distance? Not marked 'private', but then again there are no hallmarks of a right of way.

There are many walks to be taken in Jakubowizna; I've not yet scratched the surface of it in my third summer on the działka. It's a shame the habit of going for a walk (spacer) which is becoming the norm in urban Poland has not taken hold in the countryside. The only people I see walking or taking bike rides around Jakubowizna are the urban działkowicze - in the country for the weekend or for the summer. The rural folk tend to be fatter of face and more rotund of body; a walk would do them good, but they reason that they walk enough already as they tend their agricultural holdings. So they drive everywhere, and consider walking to be an activity reserved for people too poor to even own a bicycle. If they did eventually see the sense of knocking out 10,000 paces a day, we might see some useful rural footpaths making it easier to get from A to B without driving.

Below: what's this I see on my return to Jeziorki? A sign has appeared by my short-cut home from the station through an intermediary field ... What does it say? ... 'private property keep out'? Hope not - the alternative is the part-unasphalted, wholly-unpavemented ulica Nawłocka.

As I approach, I am relieved to read that it is a 'for sale' sign. It's a big field, and land prices around here are ten times what they are in Jakubowizna. So this one is for the professional developer - it's around a hectare in area - enough to put up ten detached houses or 20 semis. In a post-Covid world, the desire to move to a less densely populated part of a capital city will see demand for suburban houses rising. It will be interesting to see how quickly a developer buys it - and how quickly they develop it.

This time last year:
Not a whole lot going on...

[five months before viaduct-opening]

This time five years ago:
Dreamtime supernatural

This time seven years ago:
Baszta - local legend round these parts

This time nine years ago:
Downhill all the way to December

This time ten years ago:
What do I want for Poland

This time 11 years ago:
Summer holiday starts drizzly

This time 12 years ago:
Israeli Air Force Boeing 707 visits Okęcie