Wigry National Park
Poland has invaluable nature. Many nature reserves and national parks allow today tourists to experience a completely untouched nature, which is not found anywhere else in Europe. One of them is the Wigry National Park (Wigierski Park Narodowy), which was officially founded in 1989 and is the only nature reserve in Poland that protects a lake district landscape.
Alone 20 percent of the total area of the national park falls to the 42 natural pools, created in the retreat of the glacial masses of the Ice Age and shaped as a melting pool in the characteristic landscape of hilly front moraines of the northern part of the park. A dense network of rivers connects a multitude of lakes. In the lower southern part of the park unique forest areas grow, which belong to the north of the Augustan jungle, the "Puszcza Augustowska", which make up 60 percent of the total area of the national park. In the center of the national park lies the lake Wigry, which is the most popular and second deepest lake of the region "Suwalszczyzna" in Poland. Located on a peninsula cultural monument of the Camaldolese monastery from the 17th century, Pope John Paul II appreciated as a holiday and resort.
Lake Wigry is the source of the largest river in the region, the 147 km long Czarna Hańcza River, which undoubtedly provides the most beautiful and at the same time most popular kayak and canoe paddling tours in Poland. Together with the Augustov Canal (Kanał Augustowski), there is a total of 98.5 km of water sports for Augustów, which takes 5 to 6 days to complete.
For cycling tours and hikes, a comprehensive network of trails has been created to get to know this extraordinary part of Poland. In the planning was taken to ensure that the excursions always at the starting point of the tour end.
Open village areas, fields, meadows and pastures complete the Wigry National Park with a total of 18 percent.
Unique is the wildlife of the national park, which is home to numerous protected species and thus saved from extinction. This also includes the heraldic animal of the national park, the European beaver whose population is now estimated at 4000 copies. Since 1989, 3 pairs of white eagle have settled here. Among the fish, there are mainly small and large whitefish, which colonize particularly clean lakes.
Wolves, lynxes and the northern species of snow hare are also home to the park's 1700 proven species, of which 300 are protected. The flora is characterized by an unusual variety of plants, which due to the climatic conditions of the country thrive particularly well and plants of different geographical zones in one place, including 1000 species of vascular plants, of which 60 are strictly protected. The lakes and forests are home to several species of ferns, marsh bear rattle and many flowers, including 19 species of orchids. There are rare plants such as the insectivorous sundew, the dwarf birch, the peat quarry or the royal lice weed.
Hints:
Other nature reserves worth seeing in the vicinity are the landscape park Suwałki (Suwalski Park Krajobrazowy),
the landscape park of the Romincka primeval forests (Park Krajobrazowy Puszczy Rominckiej),
the Biebrzański National Park (Biebrzański Park Narodowy).
and another 21 smaller nature reserves in the region „Suwalszczyzna“.