This is a nineteenth-century Polish manor house deep in the woods, in the style that a sort of lower-nobility family might have lived in during that period. It's about an hour's drive from Krakow, 40 minutes from Wielicka (location of the amazing medieval salt mine). The original house was partly burned down, and the second story was reconstructed into guest rooms in a style matching the rest of the house.

This is not a traditional hotel but more like a large, upscale B&B. Note that I was traveling with my mother, who is a native Polish speaker, and I can get by in the language myself; it would probably be a little bit harder for someone who doesn't speak any Polish to communicate, although several staff members do speak some English.

Rooms are comfortable but not luxurious, with relatively large twin beds and renovated bathrooms (full bath, handheld shower, no overhead shower). We took the "apartment", which is a suite with separate sitting room, which was very nice, and also a separate second room, which was more just a functional place to sleep and not so pleasant for sitting in. There's also a nice sitting room downstairs for guests (though with a slightly freaky wolf skin on the wall, and occasionally smoky -- smoking is pretty endemic in Poland still) and the hotel owner and staff are very welcoming and friendly and sat and chatted with us.

Free wireless internet access worked pretty well upstairs in the apartment and in the downstairs sitting room also.

The star here is the food and the location. The restaurant downstairs serves amazing traditional Polish cuisine, including a lot of game dishes, and they're really nice and flexible -- my mother and I stayed here during low season, when there were very few other guests, and they were happy to give us a late cold-collation-type supper at 9pm when we arrived, and breakfast at 7am the day we had to leave, even though that's outside their normal restaurant hours (we just discussed the plans with them beforehand). The cold collation/breakfast were pretty amazing actually -- piles of fantastic cold cuts, cheese, homemade cold roasts (eg: pork stuffed with asparagus, breaded chicken breast stuffed with cheese, peppers, and broccoli), multiple kinds of salads, fresh bread, yogurt and cereal, homemade cherry preserves. The main entrees when we ate more formally during the restaurant's normal hours were also terrific -- I had really wonderful zurek (a traditional Polish sour-rye soup with sausage and hard-boiled egg) and roast venison; my mother had very good pierogi.

The manor is deep in the woods in a rural area, beautiful for long walks and incredibly quiet and restful, and good for exploring the Polish countryside. We took a day trip to the Wielicka salt mine, leaving leisurely at 11 in the morning and (since we only did the main tourist route at the mine) back by 3pm for lunch. It's a bit far from Krakow for multiple day visits to there, I would say.

I regretted not having a rental car here, as taxis were expensive to and from the manor and would have hurt if we'd been staying longer. Getting there wasn't too difficult; the directions on the hotel website are good (although there is a typo of 692 for 962 on the map, if you look at it) and there are lots of helpful road signs labeled "BELLA VITA" starting at the turn off from the main route.

One note: if going to Krakow to catch a morning train or plane, beware traffic, especially because of all the construction currently going on as Poland prepares to host the World Cup in I think 2012. We left at 7:30am and just made it to the airport at 9:15am. Our driver said that leaving half an hour earlier would have missed the traffic problems.

The hotel's English-language site is http://www.bellavita.krakow.pl/en,dwor.html.

I would recommend this place highly as a sort of retreat and recharge, and for the atmosphere -- I would have liked to stay longer here and write, actually. It's not really a resort or an organized-activities kind of place.