Brother Albert's Hermitage

This little treasure lies tucked away behind some firs on the trail from Kuznice. There's a little monastic complex halfway to the pre-war Kalatowki shelter, and here you'll find the hermitage. Brother Albert (real name Adam Chmielowski) was one of the legendary characters from turn of the Zakopane. He was a nobleman who lost his leg in the tragic January Uprising against the Russians (1863). He later took Holy Orders and set up a monastery to help the poor. His tiny hermitage is now a museum, and his rooms are as he left them. Brother Albert was a well known landscape painter in his civilian life, and several works have been preserved here. One of his greatest admirers was Pope John Paul II, who wrote a play about him as young man, before ultimately making him a saint in 1989.

An intriguing stop.

We used to always stop at this place on the way up the mountain... Brings back memories!