Visiting Beautiful Poland: Dukla, a Rococo Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Pictures

From Pieniny mountains of Poland, we drove south and crossed into Slovakia, headed east along the lonesome countryroad number 77, passing by hills upon rolling hills of grasslands and several villages with Russian names written in Cyrilic. Our destination? Dukla in Poland.

Dukla?!?!? What the heck’s in Dukla??? Here it is in pictures.

*We came here to Dukla for this: The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, likely one of the few churches named after her.*

The idea was to to simply drive through Slovakia and maybe stop for a meal. That didn’t happen. There was nowhere to stop.

The second objective was to stop by Dukla Pass where decisive battles among the Germans, Ukrainians, Poles and Slovaks were fought in the second world war. Broken down tanks, artilleries and fighter planes supposedly littered the area. Well, that didn’t happen either. The genius dad missed a turn and before we knew it was too late to turn back. We did see convoys of military hardware heading east, likely to Ukraine.

*Inside the church of Saint Mary of Magdalene.* It’s called “the pearl of *Rococo”, that’s some kind of style of the Baroque period. . . I don’t really know what that means. All I see is pink. . . and white plaster and golden glitters.*

Apparently, the late pope-became-saint John Paul II encouraged pilgrimage to a monastery of the Bernardine Fathers, also the sanctuary of Saint John of Dukla, not far from the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene.

*Life-size sculpture on the tombstone of Maria Amalia Mniszchowa, wife of some kind of important man in Dukla’s history and the second restoration of the church.* *Closer to God? … Enough said.*

*The pipe organ at the back of the Rococo church. I wish I could here it played.*

*The boys by the baptismal bowl at the entrance of Saint Mary of Magdalene’s church in Dukla.*

*The monastery of the Bernardine Fathers, the sanctuary of yet another saint–Saint John of Dukla.*

*A different kind of spirit in Dukla. . . down at the Dukla Brewery Pub.*

*Dukla Brewery’s “Little Black” Cream Stout.*

*Shaded. . .not jaded. . . at Dukla town hall.*

*A long and not-so-winding road on Slovakian road number 77 along the border with Poland. Yup, it was pretty much like this for a couple of hours.*

### That’s it. Thanks for stopping by! ###

Next Stop:

*21 days of family camping road trip number 5. This time it’s all in Polska–the beautiful land of Poles*.

Here’s the rest of what we plan to see and do in Poland’s south/southeast region on this year’s family camping road trip:

Olsztyn and the trail of the Eagle’s nest,
Black Madonna of Częstochowa,
Krakow and the nearby attractions (Energylandia, Wadowice, Wieliczka Salt Mine),
Pieniny mountain,
drive through Slovakia’s southern Carpathian mountain,
stop by the Saint Magdalene church in Dukla,
do some trekking in the Bieszczady mountains and cross over into cross over to Ukraine (… maybe ; ),
go see about a famous beetle in Szczebrzeszyn,
and a charming art town of Kazimierz Dolny.