North of Warsaw, Olsztynek, Poland
Zagan the motorhome’s in the car park of a Polish ethnographic museum at Olsztynek (N53.59008, E20.28962). It cost €1 to stay here, which appears to cover us for 24 hours… Zagan knows his crew should go in and learn something about the Poland of old, but no matter how hot and uncomfortable he makes it inside, they’re not shifting, bunch of cretins. I bet if they had cold beer and ice cream in there, they’d be off like a shot.
Zagan in the €1-a-day car park at Olsztynek
Last night, once the van had cooled enough to leave Charlie in here, we headed back up into Warsaw, all of 300m away. By this point the city itself had cooled too, and most of the guided groups of folks had been guided off elsewhere. I stared at the buildings in the old town, amazed at how they look so old, when none are older than 70 years. Practically the entire city was systematically destroyed by the Nazis once they crushed the Warsaw Rising as the Red Army looked impassively on. Photos of the razed city are just incredible to look at and compare with the modern day city, and the idea of the gargantuan willpower to rebuild it is simply staggering to me.
That said, we did some Warsaw demolition of our own: me a couple of craft beers (one was face-slap-hoppy, the other a pleasant-but-strong-coffee-beer) and Ju a chestnut flavoured ice cream, before wandering the city again, and finally heading back to Zagan.
Mały Powstaniec, The Little Insurgent – dedicated to children who were killed fighting against the Nazi occupiers in the Warsaw Uprising – times unimaginable to us peace-lubbers
I enjoyed Warsaw, despite the heavy traffic, the fact we slept (surprisingly well) next to a four lane highway and the knowledge the city was effectively a replica of something long gone, a kind of falsehood. It took me a while to get images from Roman Polanski’s The Pianist out of my head too (a harrowing, but truly wonderful film), but once I had the city was a relaxing place to be. The secure parking being such a tiny distance from the centre was a huge bonus, costing us £10.50 for our stay shy of 24 hours (see yesterday’s post for details).
Detail from a re-constructed Warsaw Old Town.
This morning we upped and left, driving north out of the city on smooth tarmac, much of it dual carriageway. All the traffic was heading south, giving us a pleasant clear run towards Gdansk. We don’t actually plan to go to Gdansk on this trip, but it’s been sign-posted from the Slovak border; weirdly it seems to be signed from everywhere, even from over 700km away. Once the dual carriageway ended, the fun and games began with overtake-at-all-costs manoeuvres being pulled off by the insane few. Nothing like yesterday, where being overtaken with a few inches to spare, on a single carriageway road with oncoming traffic, by a breakdown truck loaded with a car had to be the high/low point. Poland has roughly double the yearly road deaths of the UK (PDF EU stats – 182KB), although the numbers are dropping off year on year, presumably as brand new and safer roads are being opened all the time.
Each drive we do yields another brand new road being ploughed through fields and forests
Heavy traffic heading into Warsaw – no motorways around this capital city – yet
Fairly typical satnav instructions for out Polish drives – stay on this road for 87km, it’s hard to get lost here
Had to laugh at these roadworks arrows – for a moment it looks like you’re supposed to get out of both lanes…
Woo hoo – brand spanking shiny roads in Poland. And toll free as we’re only 3.5 tonnes.
After chatting with Niall and Claire a couple of days back, we are (I am) keen to go see the Wolf’s Lair – Hitler’s old command base – to the north-east of the country, which is also fairly close to the Polish lake district. We picked Olsztynek as a stop-over to keep the drives less than 3 hours – and we knew from campingcar-infos.com it’s less than a quid to stay here. Current thinking is we’ll let the van cool (29°C in here at 4:45pm), and head into town for some Polish grub. Next few days we’ll start the Great Two-Handed Grabbing of Poland’s Lidl Beer Stash before pootling over into Lithuania. Crackin’!
Polish lesson: an L with a line across it isn’t an L, it’s a W. And a W is a V. We’re hopeless at pronouncing almost anything here…
And continuing where I left off…, we just came back from a wander into Olsztynek. The town’s a pleasant place, cobbled streets and a mix of old and new buildings, their respective fates determined by fires and wars over the centuries. There’s even a castle here built by the Teutonic Knights in ages past, and a sign makes minor reference to Stalag I-B, a WW2 concentration camp Iv’e never heard of, where 50,000 people died.
Olsztynek
Olsztynek
On a lighter note, we’ve hammered the budget again, eating out, with me choosing the most expensive meal on the menu:
Potato pancakes for Ju, beef for me. With 3 large drinks (I accidentally had a no-alcohol pint, making up for it with a porter), came to 59 zloty, £10
Ju’s now rummaging through the cupboards checking just how much food and beer we already have in here before the big Lidl bashing starts tomorrow. Have a fun evening folks!
Cheers, Jay
P.S., nearly forgot to pop door ‘o the day in. Loved this one from Olsztynek, has a communist style look to it, but who knows?
Hi Jay and Julie!, we’ve been following your blogs for a year or so dipping in and out now and then as its our dream to tour for a year around Europe, we are now 55 and have decided to see if we can make it happen in the next year or two by renting our home out, I decided to jump forward to 2016 a week or two ago and tonight over a glass of Rose (lidl of course) I’ve just realised I’ve caught up with you real time as I wondered where the link to the next page was! , I’m slightly nervous about the prospect but excited too!! Now need to go back to your blogs and fill in a few missing years…..
Hi guys! Nah, tomorrow’s not been written yet, who knows what might happen? Well, I do, beer, beer will probably happen! Nerves are normal, without nerves it wouldn’t be as much fun. Cheers, Jay
We’ve enjoyed all of your posts, particularly Morroco! Hope we can pluck up the courage to go that far, not purchased your book on it yet but when we do we will save it for the road! ,Cathy
Morocco was a highlight for us, as was Tunisia. We were pretty nervous both times, and the culture shock hit us fairly hard, but we’re so glad we kept going, really stretched us, entertained us, educated us. I can strongly recommend ’em. Jay
I feel a Kayak moment coming on, turn right quick :-).Look out for European Wood Bison! ;-) Love the ‘Door of the’ day shot. Kindest, Wayne
Ahhh, the bison. Chatted with a few folks, and it seems you have to book a 6 hour guided walk to go see ’em. Hot out here at the mo, too hot to leave dog in here with windows closed, so no bison for us. Kayak mind, that idea’s got legs! Too posh where we are at the mo, maybe in a couple of days. Cheers, Jay
Ps, did you realise you are on the same latitude as Scunthorpe? Kindest, Wayne
Whoa, we’re cookin’ on gas here Wayne. First Scunthorpe, then the Arctic! :-) Cheers, Jay