Our Lady Protector of Tourists Chapel on Mt Okrąglica
Krupowa Hala
Tourist region: Beskid Żywiecki i Orawa
The history of the chapel dates back to the 1960s. Rev. Canon Józef Długopolski, parish priest of Sidzina from 1966 to 1971, contributed to its creation. The small shepherd's hut on Hala Krupowa, which belonged to him, was a shelter and resting place for tourists and shepherds and over time became a chapel for the people living in the area. It burned down in 1968. Despite many organisational and financial difficulties, the chapel was rebuilt in 1987, according to a design by Jacek Jemielita. It is a chapel beautifully integrated into the forest as a wooden shepherd's hut overlooking the mountains, but this bucolic scene is now somewhat marred by an incongruous transmitter station mast. It features epitaphs commemorating deceased mountain people, 14 bas-relief stations of the Passion of Christ made by several artists, a shrine to Our Lady of Częstochowa, a statue of the Crucifixion and a symbol of the Jubilee of the Year 2000. Several stone elements and a sandstone altar, with bas-reliefs of the Evangelists by Jan Stokłosa were transferred from the Chapel of St Martin in Bystra Podhalańska. Zdzisław Słonina made the sculpture of Our Lady with Child, Protector of Tourists, and the wooden replicas of the PTTK and GOPR badges that are mounted on the gable beam. The chapel is a meeting place and a place of prayer for tourists. The summer tourist season ends with a mass celebrated there on the first Sunday in October at noon when the Mountain Tourists Rally takes place on Hala Krupowa.