Autumn came early to Poland this year – it arrived in August!- and we have been loving every minute of it in the weeks since. That might not be the way we had expected to end this odyssey when we started out nine years ago and I would not be surprised to hear the odd gasp of surprise from those in the know. Sunny climes were a common factor of nearly all the stopovers we explored, a degree of the exotica appeared more than once and well known tourist destinations displayed their somewhat hackneyed attractions with predictable regularity, yet none of them could satisfy the eclectic needs of this particular couple.
Two years ago we were reaching the end of a year’s sabbatical away from the traveling ethos and starting to get itchy feet once more, eager to continue the search for the elusive new nesting site, when the world so rudely became one enormous no-travel zone and we were set back on our haunches, dumbfounded by this uncalled-for interruption in our long term plans as we reconsidered our campaign. Had we been looking in the wrong places, or with the wrong objectives? And where now could we safely go in the face of this rampant virus?
Reality finally hit home when emotional ties were seen to be missing from our location desirables list. As the old saying goes there is no place like home and home to both of us was somewhere in Europe’s more northerly climes. My English roots had offered me little permanent solace in a couple of previous lives and, as lovely as England can be, my homeland was definitely not a “third-time lucky” option; which left Poland, a country I had visited and enjoyed four or five times in my life and, more importantly, was the much-loved, ever-welcoming homeland of my better half. As travel restrictions wound down, over optimistically as it turns out, we jumped at the opportunity to be flying again and by the end of one busy weekend in Southern California’s early summer we had a detailed itinerary taking us close to siblings, nephews, nieces and friends, had taken full advantage of AirBnB’s easy booking system, and had return flights booked with LOT, our destination’s national airline; by the first week in August we were aloft once more.
This was always going to be a trip with a difference, a mixture of tourism, renewing old acquaintances, catching up with family and, maybe, a bit of light-hearted real estate research without expectations. We started with a week of restful self-indulgence in the small historic town of Kazimierz-Dolny, beautifully located on the bank of the Vistula river, a couple of hours drive south-east of Warsaw. Celine had found a secluded retreat for us at the top of the hill above the town, in a converted farm building hidden away at the end of an unpaved track surrounded by trees, with nothing to disturb us but the sounds of nature. The town is a bit of a tourist attraction with the usual Polish attributes of a rynek (town square) surrounded by elegant old buildings, some dating back to the town’s seventeenth and eighteenth-century trading heydays, a couple of handsome churches, the remains of a castle high up on a bluff overlooking the river and surrounding countryside, and, during our visit, a film festival. Our second day there was a Friday, market day, with the cobble-stoned rynek turned into a wonderland of wizened country folk selling their freshly picked home-grown produce; we eagerly stocked up on tomatoes, apples, farmers’ cheese, milk, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, lettuce, cucumbers, eggs, basil, garlic, fennel and honey, the fresh produce damp from the fields and smelling delicious. For Celine it was all wonderfully reminiscent of her childhood and for me a revelation after spending so many years on both sides of the Atlantic in a predominantly single-use plastic world.
Then followed nearly three weeks flitting hither and thither as we renewed family ties, starting in the small village of Zbytowa where we had a taste of the country life a few miles east of Wroclaw. Poland, like most of Europe, has seen a movement away from the land as younger people, disillusioned by the lack of prospects in small villages, choose to live in the cities, and farming has become more highly mechanised than ever. But even though the small strip farms and smallholdings that I remembered from earlier visits now seem to be in the minority, the country remains very agricultural with rolling fields and woods and forests delighting the eye mile after mile. The side of our family that we stayed with in Zbytowa is lucky enough to combine the benefits of gainful employment with an established international manufacturer and life in the country as part of a close-knit farming family; so maybe we did not truly experience the countryside existence, but daily walks in the local woods, picking wild blackberries and snuffling out the occasional edible mushroom, quickly started to work their magic.
Our next short journey took us along highway 8, one of Poland’s major traffic arteries between the capital, Warsaw, and south-west across the border with Czech Republic and as the E67, eventually to Prague. I am finding driving in Poland to be mostly a pleasure, once one is clear of the major cities which are under heavy pressure from a glut of private cars, the result of an increasingly healthy economy, whilst on the main highways one meets an armada of articulated eighteen-wheel lorries, providing the transportation element of today’s logistics-oriented distribution systems. And as good as the highways are for normal driving, their two lanes were never designed to accommodate such heavy traffic which can at times turn an enjoyable ride through lovely countryside into a tiresome ordeal. As for the manners of one’s fellow drivers, they are generally very courteous, and rarely show anything like the road-rage to which I have become accustomed on Southern California’s freeways; lane discipline is strictly maintained, and apart from the occasional over-zealous young blood proving his manhood at the slightest opportunity to overtake, drivers more often than not are happy to simply “go with the flow.”
Our third stopover offered a completely different view of this historic nation, as we spent four days staying in a very modern apartment overlooking the Oder River on the edge of the beautiful old city of Wroclaw which was the setting for my travelling companion’s university years. Wandering though old haunts, meeting up with friends and reminiscing about the good times one had in one’s youth are especially welcome when not faced with too much change, and Wroclaw is a city that takes great pride in it’s heritage. The city centre is extensively pedestrianised, making slow meanders through the beautifully restored Old Town a pleasure to be contemplated at a leisurely pace; and for the gourmand, café’s and restaurants abound giving ample opportunity to sample the delicious offerings of the typical Polish kitchen.
Over the next couple of weeks, our digs became somewhat less salubrious and even though we were still in August, early signs of autumn, the occasional rain shower and cool breezes, revealed a need to rectify the summer-oriented focus of our travel wardrobes. Visiting family in towns that are off the tourist beat, meant a much smaller choice of holiday rentals and a lot less luxury than our Wroclaw pad had provided. However this is not a reflection on the attractiveness of the towns themselves, as pockets of history and fine architecture are to be found in every Polish city and town, even if at times such gems can be visually overwhelmed by the depressing sameness of Communist era blocks of flats, built with good intent but without any attempt at aesthetic design. For convenience of its location, we stayed in one of those tiny flats ourselves, furnished cheap IKEA style to look sleek and modern, with the almost unique addition for that neighbourhood of a somewhat redundant windowsill-mounted A/C unit; but the four-storey tramp up the concrete staircase revealed the sad heritage of the building’s thoughtless design.
Living or staying in any of the old towns of the Sudety, the south-eastern corner of modern Poland close to the border with the Czech Republic, one is never far from from the countryside which becomes more and more beautiful as the flatter farmland to the north gives way to rolling hills and the distant mountains come closer; and to continue the historical theme, old castles and chateaux are there aplenty, along with more modern attractions such as the early twentieth century spa towns in the foothills where this particular episode of our travels comes to an end.
Spending a few days in a spa town, partaking of the mineral-rich health-giving waters both internally and externally, taking vigorous hikes in the forest and being massaged and pampered in the calming atmosphere of one’s chosen “pensjonat” is a curative for many an ailment, and here in Poland can even be prescribed by your family doctor. When we first arrived in Polanica-Zdroj nearly three months ago, the popularity of the small town’s offerings were immediately evident from the large numbers of “persons of advancing years” strolling purposefully through Park Zdrojowy, many suitably armed with a pair of Nordic walking poles, rather as if the town was one huge retirement home. We, however, were not guests of one of the many elegant old villas dotted around the edge of that fine green space, but short term residents of a well-restored second floor apartment in a fine old villa tucked away at the edge of the forest, yet still only a ten-minute stroll down into the centre of the action, and appropriately described in my travel journal as “probably the best AirBnB we have stayed in to date”, high praise indeed considering all the beautiful places our wanderings have taken us over the past several years.
Taking life easy was a real necessity after the hectic three weeks of catching up with all the family and friends, and this “village” of some six thousand souls was just the place for it. As we relaxed with a welcome cup of tea in one of the verandahs enjoying the evening sunshine and watching the noisy antics of a couple of European jays playing among the leaves of the linden, birch, maple, rowan and pine trees surrounding our new pad, the worries of the world seemed blissfully far away. All the same we never expected to be so lucky as to find our new nest just a couple of hundred yards away for that is exactly what would happen in the coming weeks and explains why, after days and days of nestbuilding and far too few days of finding time to enjoy all that our new homeland has to offer, we find ourselves still in Poland nearly three months later. But that is another story for the next, and possibly last episode of “Searching For The Future”; definitely the moment to give my writing time back to “Are We Nearly There”!
