ARTICLE • October 6, 2026
Villages of the east — Podlasie, Kurpie and Roztocze without hurry
Three regions where the village is not a decoration but a way of life. Podlasie with its painted shutters, Kurpie with paper cut-outs, Roztocze with wooden cottages — each looks different and each needs time.
Eastern Poland has the densest network of villages that look the way they looked — not because someone restored them, but because nobody had a reason to change them. This is a region where sightseeing means driving side roads and stopping without a plan.
Podlasie — the land of open shutters
Podlasie villages share a distinctive detail: shutters painted white, blue and green with patterns nobody designed — people simply made them that way for generations. The name “land of open shutters” is not a slogan but a description of a real custom.
Add Orthodox churches, shrines and wooden houses standing in the landscape without fences. Combine it with Białowieża if you like, but the villages themselves are the goal, not an add-on.
More: Podlasie villages.
Kurpie — cut-outs and forest
Kurpie is a region in the forest north of Ostrołęka, split into White and Green Kurpie. People lived off the forest: timber, honey, foraging — and the culture is very concrete to this day.
Most recognisable are Kurpie paper cut-outs — paper compositions made with a single cut of the scissors. In Łyse an Easter palm competition is held every year, and Kurpie honey has a firm place among regional products.
More: Kurpie villages.
Roztocze — wood and ravines
Roztocze is a land of gentle hills and loess ravines, and its villages have their own architecture: wooden cottages with tall roofs, well sweeps and roadside shrines.
This is a region where you should stop in one village for a whole day instead of ticking off five. Zwierzyniec, Guciów, Suchowola — each has its own rhythm.
More: Roztocze villages.
How to visit villages
You do not drive into someone’s yard, you do not photograph people without asking, and you do not treat a village as a film set. The best conversations happen in the shop, at the market and by the church — where locals already are.
Practical
Trains reach Białystok, Ostrołęka and Zamość, but villages need a bus or a car. This is a region where a car genuinely changes reach — so plan the route rather than leaving it to chance.
When to go
May–September. In spring and summer villages live; in autumn they are empty and beautiful in their own way. In winter many side roads are not cleared.