By Linda Thalman & Pierre Nagel |
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Poland
Thursday, 11 June 2009 An earlyish start towards Poland, on to the motorway at 8:30 and we were in Poland an hour later. No border controls as Poland is part of the European Union and a Schengen country.
Average driving speed is about 70 kms per hour on local roads. Not much traffic, but fixed radar controls almost every five minutes and we saw a cop with a radar gun too. We passed Auchan, Carrefour, Roi Merlin and Ikea at a really big mall outside of the town. There wasn't one car in the parking lot. Were the Poles boycotting these French and Swedish stores? Lights went off in our heads... it was a national holiday! We had lunch in Wroclaw and a jaunt around the old town... the market place is beautiful and was full of people inspite of it being a holiday. Wroclaw's historic city center is so pretty!
Eating Tip: Do have lunch at Kurna Chata. Simple fare but tasty, so tasty.
We found food stands, cafes, handicrafts and music in the Reynak, or market square, in Poznan. A quick walkabout before another strong rain, wind, thunder and lightening storm hit. It was only another 50 kilometes to Gniezno, population 70,000, where we stayed at the Pietrak Hotel.
Polish soup and pierogi with cheese; grilled pork, potatoes, cabbage and carrot salad and a Chilian wine. 88 PLN, 10% tip = 100 PLN = about 20 euros. Amazing good value for money. Then internet and bed.
Hotel Pietrak
Friday, 12 June 2009
Not too far north of Gniezno we stopped at the Biskupin Archaelogical Reservation and Museum.
This is a site of early European settlers (3000 BC). It is said that farming spread from there to Western Europe
The first excavations started in 1937 and what one sees today is a reconstruction based on the archaeological finds. It's a unique site and worth visiting. Torun is another beautiful old city center, UNESCO site, with a lovely riverfront along the Vistula. Parking wasn't easy to find as the town was packed with locals and tourists. Couldn't find a restaurant for money, yet the main square had a dozen places for drinks. Finally, we ate at a tourist place with rather mediocre food... it shall remain unnamed.
Copernicus was born here and we visited the Copernicus museum where he lived and worked before going to Italy.
We strolled along the long quai and decided on a whim to stay in the superbly located Dluglie Pobrze in a lovely hotel. Interstingly when we asked the price for a double and blinked a bit saying it was above budget, the receptionist asked what our range was and she gave us the room for 150 zlt less than announced. Wow!
Hansa Hotel
Dinner was just super at the Goldwasser,as was the vodka of the same name.
Saturday, 13 July 2009 On the northern way out of Gdansk, there is a big monument to where World War Two started, just where the Vistula ends in the sea. We headed north to the nearby beach resort towns of Sopot and Gydnia in the rain. The locals says its unseasonably cool and it shouldn't be raining. We stopped briefly for a view of the long white sand beach and the Baltic. The beach hotels and accommodations are not on the beach directly. There is a wide band of hardwood trees, bike and walking path between the main drag and the beach. Very nice that you really feel away from civilization. Our swimsuits stayed in the luggage and we did a U-turn aiming for Elblag Canal. This has a hydraulic system unique in the world to pull boats up and down the hills connecting a number of lakes. Drizzle continued but we saw the pulleys and water-run system as tourist boats came by at one of the slipways between Elblag and Ostroda. Lunch was tinned herring from our camping gear and a chocolate bar.
And big it is. We visited the High Castle and the Middle Castle, but not the ramparts or the tall tower. You can easily spend 3 hours, especially if you stick with or are stuck with a tour group. For castle and fortress lovers, Malbork is really one impressive place. Web: See UNESCO list Entry fee: 35 zlt per person; parking 7 zlt Ending the day we arrived in the small town of Frombork, northeast of Gdansk on the Baltic as we want to visit the Copernic Museum. Remember that Copernicus, followed up on a number of Islamic scientists' thinking that the sun may be the center of the universe. But he could not actually prove it and his publication was printed the month he died.
Breakfast was at Dom Roberto just next door where we'd had dinner the night before. Sunday, 14 June 2009 Long day's drive to Warsaw and we were stuck in Sunday late afternoon traffic going to the capital. Finding our hotel, Dom Literatury, was easy to find and our room on the 3rd floor had the most fabulous view on the Royal Castle, Place Zamkowy and the old town. We took a stroll around the old town, through the Reynek Stare Miasto - the old town square. Dinner just outside the old town city walls at a 'typical' Polish restaurant that was so good. Monday, 15 June 2009 The only museum open on Mondays in Warsaw is the Rising Museum. We caught a bus to this exceptionally interesting and well presented museum of the history of the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis.
Dinner at Gessler, but not the most famous one and we found out it had closed a year or so ago. Guide books don't know everything. The meal with pork chop and pork knuckle, and a bottle of Spanish Torres red wine was excellent. Tuesday, 16 June 2009 Tuesday and it is seriously raining. We run between buildings to visit the Royal Palace Museum and the National Museum. The goal is to see the painting of the famous Grunwald battle which trounced the Teutonics and en passant learned that Poland in 1791 prides itself on having the first constitution in Europe. Internet cafes are not too hard to find, but figuring out Polish vocabulary for password, log on, exit, etc. is a linguistic challenge. We bought the public transport day ticket for 9 Zlt. This is very good value for all buses, trams and metros. Our value for money lunch was at the tiny Blue Bar near Rondo Charles de Gaulle. Dinner was at the Reynak Cafe, a new small restaurant on the old town's main square. Vocabulary we can recognize, say or approximately pronounce in Polish: one, two, thank you, ice cream, coffee, tea, milk, beer, wine, water, vodka, exit, entrance, museum, soup, old town, town hall, new town, square, palace, castle, .... well it's a start! Wednesday, 17 June Heading south we aim for Kazimierz Dolny, a real jewel of a town.
Then a jaunt around the old town and we checked in to a hotel on the Reynek. The city's main square and several streets around it were visited easily on foot. Then we drove a dozen kilometers to the "prom" - a ferry boat which cost 26 PLN [about 5 euros] round trip to Janowiec and back to the south side of the river. We visited the castle ruins on the hill with views of the surrounding countryside and the Vistula River and watched a bit of a wedding party entertainment with medieval music, sword fighting and dancing. Totally authenitic; no guided tour could have guaranteed such a treat. We stayed in Kazimierz Dolny at the Dom Architekta where we were quoted 130 PLN for the night plus 15 for parking and breakfast. The next morning, the new price was 60 PLN more. This was in the end a language confusion... the person who said 130 zloty must have made a mistake as both Pierre and I heard her say one hundred thirty for the room.
The hotel was gracious enough to only charge us that; I urged them to have their staff write down
the price and we would do the same in the future too.
Thursday, 18 June 2009 Pierre writes: On the last morning in Warsaw we met with my genealogy research specialist and his wife. Michal has been investigating my father's side of the family ancestry. All I had until then was the marriage certificate of my great-grandfather in 1895 in Belgium. It mentions his birthplace as Sienno in Poland (in the district of Radom, a part of Russia at the time). So as a result of Michal's research I now have three prior generations in Poland. Off we went to visit the birthplaces mentioned, all southeast of Warsaw. We went straight to Kaziemierz Dolny in time for a lovely lunch in a very quaint touristic town and it is the birth place of my paternal great-great grandmother Golda Wajntrob in 1847. Just one synagogue/guest house and a hillside tombstone memorial outside of town remain there. The next day we went through the large town of Zwollen (birth place registry of other ancestors), then through Lipsko (small town, birthplace of Chil Nagel in 1826), then Sienno (a very small town, birth place of Isaac Nagel in 1869) then through Ostrowiec Swietokrzuski (a larger industrial town) birthplace of Herzek Nagel in 1848; and then Opatow (a small town) for lunch. From there we zipped over to Lublin, a lovely historic town for a pleasant walkabout visit in the sun. We found all hotels were full in Lublin, so we decided to go back to Kaziemierz Dolny. Linda continues: The most charming hotel we've stayed in on the trip so far; the best meal we've had as well was in Kazimierz Dolny. Compared to the hotel the night before in the same town - no comparison. Dwa Ksierzyce wins hands down. It's on a quiet street just two minutes from the main square and a haven of peace with the most beautiful shrubs, trees, flowers, a pond and we had a charming room with a small sitting area and a balcony. With dinner there was live music on the piano at a soft-tone background level. Just delightful and the best place to stay in the region.
Dwa Ksiezyce Hotel and Restaurant
Baltic Trip By Linda Thalman And Pierre Nagel
Email – Linda@wfi.fr
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Copyright since 1995 by Linda Thalman - all rights reserved. |
We did change euros into Zloty as Poland is in transition to adopt the euro. 4.45 NPL to the euro today.
However, Poland is not in the euro zone, so one pays in Zloties.
Arrived in the rain in Gniezno, the old capital of Poland. It's a small town with only a few restaurants
and, in fact, the best place for typical Polish food was in the hotel.
Biskupin is a fascinating open air museum with timber structures dating from over 2700 years ago!
Then on to Gdansk. By car we saw some of the old town and fell upon the ship yards where
Solidarnosc became famous. Stocznia Gdanska.
Goldwasser Restaurant
We were just a bit behind in our schedule to get to Malbork: the biggest castle in the world in the
14th and 15th century and is today a UNESCO heritage site.
We stayed in this modest B&B:
Dom Familijny Rheticus
We walked up the Royal Way and then spent two hours trying to find a non-existent laundromat 13 kms
southwest of town... it was allegedly the only one in the whole city. Ended up doing laundry in the hotel sink!
Lunch at the "Hairdresser" restaurant was delightful and it was a suggestion from our contacts in Warsaw who
are doing geneology research on Pierre's father's family which comes from eastern Poland and Belarus.
Paris
