On the Kalatówki meadow, right next to the Albertine Sisters' convent, stands a modest wooden hut with an extraordinary story behind it. This is the hermitage of Brother Albert, born Adam Chmielowski, a painter who traded his easel for a monk's habit and devoted his life to the poor. The place still draws pilgrims and history lovers exploring the Zakopane area.

The humble two-room building, with its small porch and narrow vestibule, blends perfectly into the landscape at the foot of the Tatras. One room is almost entirely filled by a narrow wooden bunk — Brother Albert's cell — while the other now houses a memorial room with books, postcards and pictures. The surroundings of Kalatówki are lovely in every season: lush green meadows and forests in summer, quiet snow-dusted paths in winter. A visit here offers more than views — it's a moment of reflection in a place once visited by Żeromski, Witkiewicz and Conrad, and where Pope John Paul II prayed in 1997.

• Kuźnice — blue trail, approx. 12 minutes, easy route, distance 0.8 km
• The trail continues to the PTTK mountain hut on Hala Kondratowa, so you can combine the visit with a longer walk

• The hermitage lies within the grounds of the Albertine Sisters' convent at Kalatówki
• Listed as a historic monument in 2001
• The initial stretch of the trail from Kuźnice is a cobbled path known as Brother Albert's Path

Interestingly, it was in the chapel of the Albertine convent that Stefan Żeromski set the action of his novel The Conversion of Judas — a literary trace that adds even more charm to this quiet corner of the Tatras.