Rotunda

Rotunda is a 771 m hill in the Low Beskid in south-eastern Lesser Poland. It lies on a side spur that leaves the main Carpathian ridge at Jaworzyna Konieczniańska and runs north: via Dział (712 m) it descends to Rotunda and then into the fork of the Zdynia and Regetówka streams above the village of Smerekowiec. The mountain is a fairly regular dome – hence the name “rotunda” – slightly elongated to the north-east, with steep and little-dissected slopes. Today it is entirely forested.

Rotunda lies in the Uście Gorlickie municipality of Gorlice County. Regietów is about 1.5 km away, Zdynia about 3.2 km. The main reason to come here is the First World War cemetery on the summit, one of the best known in the Beskids.

How to get there / routes

Since 2000 the red Main Beskid Trail (GSB) has crossed the summit (previously it ran along the northern slopes). The black “cemetery trail” follows the same line, as do the European E3 and the Eisenach–Budapest friendship trail.

• From Regietów – red trail to the summit and on to Zdynia (Ług hamlet).
• From Zdynia (Ług) – the same trail in the opposite direction.

Official sources give no walking times; the section is short but the slopes are steep.

What you can see from the summit

The summit is wooded, so there is no wide panorama. The main sight is the cemetery itself, with its wooden towers among the trees. The dome shape of Rotunda is best seen from the Regetówka and Zdynia valleys.

Nature and history

War cemetery no. 51 “Rotunda” is an Austrian First World War burial ground designed by the Slovak architect Dušan Jurkovič. It holds 42 Austro-Hungarian and 12 Russian soldiers killed in February and March 1915. The cemetery is circular and enclosed by a stone wall. It originally had five tall wooden tower-crosses in Lemko style: a central one 16 m high and four side towers of 12 m.

In May 1979 all the towers still had their cladding. In 1980 the cemetery was entered in the register of monuments, but no conservation work began; by then only fragments of three of the five towers survived. In 1995, for the 80th anniversary of the Gorlice offensive, clearing and securing the site began with the help of the Austrian Black Cross. On the initiative of the Warsaw Student Club of Beskid Guides (SKPB), the Social Committee for the Reconstruction of the War Cemetery on Rotunda was founded. In 2004 24 new grave crosses and name plates were made; two towers were rebuilt in 2008 and 2009, another in 2014 and the last two in 2016. The cemetery is now fully reconstructed. A stone plaque bears a Maltese cross and a German quatrain by Hans Hauptmann.

At the foot of the mountain, in Regietów, SKPB Warszawa runs a student tent base; its members and supporters did most of the work to restore the cemetery.

Safety, season and rules

Rotunda is a low wooded hill accessible all year. The path to the summit is steep: slippery after rain, and in winter you will need boots with good tread. The cemetery is a monument and a burial place – behave respectfully and do not climb the towers or the wall. There is no water or shelter on the summit, and mobile coverage in the valleys is weak.

This part of the Low Beskid is covered by the Krynica group of the mountain rescue service GOPR: call 985 or +48 601 100 300, or 112; installing the «Ratunek» app is recommended.

Interesting facts

• The central tower of the cemetery is 16 m tall, the four side towers 12 m each.
• The reconstruction of the cemetery took more than twenty years, from 1995 to 2016.
• The Main Beskid Trail was routed over the summit only in 2000.

Photos: Henryk Bielamowicz, CC BY-SA 4.0; Henryk Bielamowicz, CC BY-SA 4.0; Henryk Bielamowicz, CC BY-SA 4.0; Piotr Wieczorek, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl; Jerzucha62, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons.