Category: Poland

Tuesday 11th April – Warsaw

Reluctantly after two beautiful relaxing days, we left this beautiful rural setting, all batteries (ours and Ziggy’s fully recharged) and headed for the Big Smoke – Warsaw here we come. 

We didn’t see much of the countryside over the next 100kms as we travelled only on the motorway which took us into the centre of Warsaw.  The new motorways have walls 3-4 metres high on both sides so  we didn’t see much of the scenery but it was an easy drive. 

We settled in at Camping Majawa around lunchtime (only a couple of places in Warsaw to choose from).  Very expensive compared to everywhere else we have stayed in – around $42AUD per night. 

It would have been beautiful when it opened many many years ago but now it is very run down and old and as it did not officially open until 1st May, very little had been done to it since last season – very badly maintained. 

Its location is very central to the centre of Warsaw so excellent position for sightseeing but nothing else.  Power boxes were very rusty and looked unsafe.  Bathrooms were very antiquated with no hot water most of the time – so we showered in Ziggy

We received good news – an SMS from my relatives advising that I have been verbally granted Polish Citizenship – yeah!!! – 12 months down the track and now I have my first piece of paper (yet to arrive in the mail).  Now to find out the next steps to get the end result – my passport.

Kornelia (my Niece’s daughter) and her partner Kamil met us at Camping Majawa mid Tuesday afternoon and from there we walked a short distance to the tram station which in only a few stops took us into the centre of Warsaw.  The tram and subway systems are amazing.

First a visit to Warsaw Old Town whose history goes back over 700 years.  This was bombed to the ground during World War II and has now been reconstructed from scratch using old photos and drawings. 

UNESCO has included it on its list of World Cultural Heritage.  The Royal Castle is one of the most visited attractions here.  The square is filled with cafes though today has been bitterly cold, overcast and some rain so not many people are outside.   The King Zygmunt column towers over the square – it is the oldest and highest monument in Warsaw.  The statue fell during World War II and was reconstructed in 1945.

We walked along beautiful cobbled streets and saw so many beautiful buildings – exact replicas of the old buildings and statues including the Mermaid Statue – a guardian and symbol of Warsaw.

Wednesday morning Kornelia took us to the Warsaw Rising Up Museum which is located in a former trams power station, a historical monument of industrial architecture from the early 20th century.

An amazing building by itself and the exhibits that are spread out over three floors are the best we have ever seen anywhere.   We spent nearly four hours there and learned so much about Polish history and the persecution of the Polish people, not only by Germany but Russia towards the end of World War 2.  Both Germany and Russia wanted the valuable farming land for themselves and Poland suffered and lost so many lives (around 9 million people) and their land and country because of this.

We headed back to Ziggy to tackle the traffic getting out of Warsaw to Biala Podlaska.  By train it takes less than two hours but by Ziggy we spent nearly 40 minutes travelling less than 1km. 

Four hours later we arrived in Biala where we met Barbara, Piotr and Lily (their dog or probably their second child by the way she is treated) and sat down to a traditional Polish meal – the first of so many banquets over the next week.

Thursday 13th – through Monday 17th April – Biala Podlaska

The next day was still a working day so Piotr was unable to be with us today but after a sumptuous breakfast (again traditional polish food) Barbara and Kornelia drove us to the cemetery where my grandparents were laid to rest. 

The polish people in Eastern Poland are very religious and true Catholics.  Easter is their holy time and looking after the grave sites is paramount to them.  The cemetery is located in a beautiful green rural setting in Lipinki.  Every grave has flowers and lanterns and beautiful headstones.  It was truly moving to see how well they look after their families after death. 

We drove on to the town where my father was born, Kryzwowolka, a very small farming area of only a few houses and then on to other places where he and his parents lived. 

I am a bit lost with the sequence of every day but we have twice had beautiful meals with grandma Jadwiga (Piotr’s mother).  The meals continue over many hours with visitors coming and going all day.  It is a truly beautiful time where families spend their time going from one house to another. 

They go to several daily masses starting from Easter Thursday and some of the masses go for 3-4 hours.  There is standing room only in the church.  Easter Friday and Easter Saturday are days with no meat or alcohol consumed.  We attended resurrection mass on Sunday morning with the family.  A beautiful ceremony of the resurrection of Christ followed by mass.  Once mass is over the party begins!!!

A huge meal of a dozen varieties of meat and polish dishes hit the table and so does the vodka.   A procession of family members come and go all day.  We eat and drink non stop – exhausted we went to bed in readiness of more eating and drinking and meeting new people on Monday.  I learned lots of bits and pieces about my dad and the things he did when he re-visited Poland many years ago.

Sunday afternoon at 4:50 pm it started to snow and is expected to be minus 4 degrees overnight with a max of 8 degrees tomorrow – thank heavens it is nearly summer

All shops are closed on Easter Sunday and Monday.

Cakes of all kind are a tradition here and are eaten with nearly every meal.  Barbara and Kornelia baked three massive cakes including black Forrest cake with home made black currant jam, another with jelly and berries and meringue and cream and the last, a traditional baked cheese cake.

We love the SWEET tradition but not good for the waistline.

Tomorrow we can continue with the epic struggle of getting a little further down  the track to get my Polish Passport.

Meeting my family in Poland

To Barbara Chilczuk (my wonderful and beautiful niece), Piotr (her husband) and Kornelia (their beautiful daughter and our English translator) I want to thank you so very very much for the warmth and friendship you have given Rob and myself, firstly during the last 9 months through emails and Skype calls and now for everything you have done for us and we have shared over many days.

Thank you Kamil, Magda and Margaret (Goosha) for helping with translations.  We find it difficult and embarrassing that we cannot speak many words in Polish but my mother (born in Austria) and father (born in Poland) only spoke German at home.  My mother could not speak Polish and so I didn’t learn much Polish at home.

We have met so many beautiful people, grandma Jadwiga (Piotr’s mum and the best cook in Poland except from Barbara) uncle Mirek and their children and grand children, and many more people have accepted us as family here.

Many do not remember or were too young to remember my father and it has been very difficult to get much more information about his life here in particular during World War II and the years when he met my mother in Germany where I was born.

It has been one of my main goals for our trip to find out more information about those years as my mother and father refused to talk about the war years.  After discussions with family members here and visits to Polish Museums we now understand why.

 

We travelled to Zagan to the Muzeum Obozow Jenieckich – the POW Camps Museum of Stalag Luft 3 and about which the film “The Great Escape” was made. 

One of Rob’s favourite movies “The Great Escape” told the story of the Great Escape here during World War II.  

They have a great museum here and a reconstruction of Stalag Luft 3 showing the three tunnels (Tom, Dick & Harry) that were used for the escape.  More than 600 prisoners helped in building these tunnels.

 

The Stalag was built in the spring of 1942.  It was built to imprison the officers of the Allied Air forces.  In 1945 Stalag Luft 3 held more than ten thousand captive air force officers.  On 24^th March 1944, 76 airmen broke free of the camp.  73 were recaptured and 50 were shot.  Only 3 made it home. Four of the 50 shot were Australians.

There were several other camps in Zagan and at its peak over 300,000 prisoners were in the camps – around 130,000 died of starvation, the cold and or ill treatment.

We left Zagan and headed for Wroclaw to spend the night in the heart of the city in a stadium. 

The first 40 kms were the worst stretch of highway we had ever encountered.  The road was fully corrugated and it was like travelling 40kms with a speed bump every two metres.  Ziggy shook, rattled and did everything except roll.  I think every bone in our body ached.   But then the road just changed back to normal – thank goodness.

There were a few tourist sights we wanted to see in Wroclaw.  We arrived there in the middle of late afternoon peak hour traffic.  Such a big city and so busy.   Arrived at the stadium and were told that the stadium was closed for camping for the next five days so what could we do?

We headed out of Wroclaw city and headed for the country again.  There were several motorway rest spots along the way, but we have been warned through the blog sites that these were the worst places to stay.

In frustration and as it got later we arrived at Olesnica and decided we would find somewhere in the town to just park for the night. 

Found a large parking area just outside of the town church.  There were quite a few cars still in the parking area but there was plenty of room for us. 

Rob headed off to speak with a couple of people and ask about the safety of parking here.  He met this lovely tradesman who was just packing up his car for the night and to our surprise not only spoke Polish but also German fluently. 

Well guess what – Rob broke out in his best German and soon the lovely man told us to follow him as there was a hotel up the road where he played the guitar regularly and he would ask if we could park in the grounds for the night.  He was just so delightful and nothing was a problem.

We followed him up the hill and together the boys met with hotel reception and negotiated a spot in the car park for the night.

We thanked our angel in disguise who before we left him, offered us a bottle of his moonshine – he had a dozen in the back seat of his car – we declined gracefully.

We had dinner and a couple of beers in the restaurant (great food and lovely modern hotel) and tipped the staff on the way out.  They were so happy with the tip, they insisted we come back for breakfast in the morning.  We declined gracefully – as we were beginning to feel the pinch of so much good food and wine (and not a lot of exercise of the last couple of days).

Sunday 9^th to Monday 10^th  April –Chlebow at Lipce Reymontowskie – 50klms north east of Lodz – Poland

Woke up and spent a short time checking emails just before breakfast and heading off.  Horror, shock – there was an email from Westpac advising us that there were some suspicious transactions in our account and asking us to lodge a report to the fraud squad to investigate if the transactions had not been approved by us.  Having been warned about getting money from an ATM not in a shop or bank and remembering the location where I had drawn cash the day before, we immediately believed someone had accessed our accounts. 

The next two hours was spent on the phone to Westpac changing all our passwords to be safe.  Our accounts had not been accessed so we headed off feeling much happier.  Lesson learnt always phone the fraud squad first before believing anything in an email or giving out information in an email.

We had a late start but we knew where we were staying for the night so enjoyed again the acres and acres of beautiful countryside.

Poland is such a beautiful place.  We have not had the time yet to experience much as we are on a deadline to get to Biala Podlaska.

Heading off the highway, we soon come to a very rural little village.  Only about 8 houses in the street and one of these is where we are camping for the night.  It was called “Bumerang” and is in Camperstop and ADAC books. 

The sign on the gate showed us we were at the correct place but no one was home.  The homestead was locked up and no one in sight.  We looked up and down the street and only saw a little old lady.  Knew that she would not speak English or any language other than Polish – ugh!!.   

We decided that the owners should be home soon so began to back up into a driveway of a partly built house across the road and that was where we were staying for the night. 

Saved by the neighbour who came out and told us the owners were away on holiday and opened up the gates and lead us to the back of the homestead which was set up for mobile home parking.  He told us in his broken English that someone would see us in the morning for payment.

It was like an oasis in the desert.  The back of the homestead was beautifully grassed areas allowing for around 10 motor homes.  You looked out across fruit trees to fields just freshly ploughed. 

Again we were the only ones there.  Within a half an hour some people arrived and told us they were looking after “Bumerang” for their friends who were holidaying in Greece.  The couple were Dutch and spoke excellent English. 

We had a great conversation with them and found out that the town was only a couple of kms away and would be an easy ride into town on our bikes to explore the next day. 

We talked to them about whether we could get Polish SIM cards there as we were ham strung with no internet since we left Germany a couple of days before.  They offered to come into town with us the next morning and help us buy our SIM cards.

Around 9.30am they arrived and told us that they had checked in their town about SIM cards and they were not available there but a small town called Skierniewice around 17kms away could help us out.  We started to pack up Ziggy to follow them but they said they would drive us there instead as this would be easier for us.

In the short time we have been here we have found the people we have met in Poland so wonderful.

Rob & Marie-Louise Deuver were absolutely wonderful.  They stood with us at a Telecom Poland office and helped us to buy and have a SIM card installed for my Ipad. 

I think we got 10GB of data for around $AUD 8 for a month..  Marie-Louise then spoke to them about Rob’s ipad which had our German SIM card jammed in the SIM card slot  We were taken to another store where with the help of a Stanley knife, the storekeeper was able to open up and remove the jammed SIM card.  He then installed another SIM for Rob for around the same price.

Rob and Marie-Louise then took us to the village centre where they were setting up a market for Easter.  They told us where to buy the best Polish Sausages and we bought these and some home brewed local beer.  Then on to the supermarket where they helped us select some other Polish specialties they said we should taste.

Finally after a wonderful morning, they took us back to their house in Retniowiec for some coffee and Dutch cookies.

“Bumerang” is just a beautiful rural setting and we would highly recommend anyone to stay here for at least a couple of nights.   the owners who were holidaying in Greece – Kazimierz & Jola Foks  are continually upgrading Bumerang and currently are building a laundry there.  There are hot showers, WC, grey water discharge, fresh water and all for around 10 euros a night.

To Rob and Marie-Louise – thank you for taking the time to make our stay with you so unbelievably wonderful.  Bumerang deserves to do well and we hope anyone following this blog site and are visiting Poland – please visit here – you will not be disappointed.