Wysowa-Zdrój spa: pump room, Franciszek and Henryk waters

Wysowa-Zdrój is a quiet spa at the source of the Ropa river in the Beskid Niski, at 500–550 m, 20 km from Krynica-Zdrój and 25 km from Bardejovské Kúpele in Slovakia. The local waters have long been known: in 1775 the village owner Maciej Lanckoroński credited his robust health to bathing in them, in 1790 Urszula Dębieńska built the first bathhouse here, and in 1812 the village head Ignacy Czechowicz put up the building that started the public spa. At the end of the 19th century about two thousand guests came every year, the waters were bottled, and before the First World War they were compared to those of Merano, Ems and Kissingen. The war destroyed the spa; after the Second World War the state revived it: since 1959 it has been run by an enterprise, today the joint-stock company Uzdrowisko Wysowa S.A., which also owns the Wysowianka bottling plant.

Mineral waters and natural resources

Wysowa's waters are alkaline carbonated waters saturated with natural carbon dioxide, hydrogencarbonate-chloride-sodium with many trace elements; 11 sources are used, with mineralisation from 0.6 to 25 g per litre. The best-known medicinal ones are Franciszek (a 50 m borehole, 14.8 g of minerals per litre, with bromine and iodine; named after the nephrologist Professor Franciszek Kokot) and Henryk (5.2 g per litre, with boron; named after the geologist Henryk Świdziński). The first is recommended for gastric and duodenal ulcers, hyperacidity, gallbladder diseases and constipation, the second also for metabolic disorders, diabetes and iodine deficiency; neither should be drunk with thyroid disease. The free Aleksandra source (a 1961 borehole) is one of the most highly mineralised waters in Poland: so salty that it is not drunk undiluted.

Pump room and spa park

The wooden mineral-water pump room in the centre of the spa park opened in 2006 – a reconstruction, based on archival material, of the old pump room that had burned down. It serves Anna, Franciszek, Henryk, Józef II and Słone; the park also has free intakes of Aleksandra, Józef I and Bronisław. Around it are avenues, a fountain and gazebos, with the Wysowianka bottling plant nearby.

What is treated

By decision No 4 of the Minister of Health of 1 September 2008 (amended in 2018), the spa's approved treatment profiles are orthopaedic and post-traumatic diseases, nervous system diseases, rheumatic diseases, upper airway diseases, digestive diseases, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, and kidney and urinary tract diseases. The spa company itself runs profiles for digestive diseases (gastroenterology and hepatology), upper airways, rheumatology, diabetes, obesity, the urinary system and orthopaedics; the spa hospital also has a dialysis centre. Treatments are prescribed by a doctor; visitors not staying at the spa can buy paid treatments after a physiotherapist's consultation (56 zł, free when buying treatments worth over 300 zł).

Pool and wellness

The Biawena spa centre has a spa zone with three saunas (Finnish, herbal and steam), indoor and outdoor hot tubs and an 8 × 4.2 m rehabilitation pool, 1.3 m deep, with hydromassage, a waterfall and a counter-current; there is also a brine graduation wall of birch twigs and a wall of Bochnia salt. The spa zone is open Monday to Saturday 14:00–19:45, Sundays and holidays 11:00–19:45; the pool water is ordinary, not mineral.

Practical information

A single district road leads to Wysowa from Uście Gorlickie; buses run from Gorlice, and the road to the Slovak border at Konieczna is nearby. According to OpenStreetMap the pump room is open daily 7:30–18:30 and the free Aleksandra source in the morning (8:30–14:30). An hour is enough for the park and pump room.

Nearby: trails, peaks, sights

From the spa start the short Wysowa-Zdrój – Święta Góra Jawor trail to the pilgrimage site and Wysowa-Zdrój – Regietów. Six kilometres away rises Lackowa, the highest peak of the Polish Beskid Niski, and seven kilometres away stands the wooden St Paraskevi's Church in Kwiatoń.

Official website: uzdrowisko-wysowa.pl

Photos: Henryk Bielamowicz, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.