Blogs from Greater Poland, Poland, Europe

The monsoon season was still ongoing across UK. The heavens had opened at the weekend and bucket loads of rain continued to fall, as we approached midweek. There was a brief respite, as we cautiously trundled down the M1. Oh what a difference it was from last summer, when we became tired of yet another baking, dry day. We were bound for a heatwave in Eastern Europe. It had been 30 degrees plus for weeks in Poland and there was no sign of it abating. We walked out of the terminal at Poznan Airport into a wall of heat. As a man of public transport, the last thing I usually do is look for a taxi. The weather and it being the Other Half's birthday, softened me up and we sped off for the Old Town. ... read more

Monika, our Collette tour courier, hastened the group along as we prepared to leave Wrocław for Torruń. We would be stopping for lunch at Poznań, but we must make haste getting there and arrive before noon. She would not say why. En route we made a hurried rest stop at a travel plaza near Lipnow. A curiosity here were the statues of European Bison placed in an adjacent field. I'm not sure why there were placed here, but will note that the European Bison is Poland's national animal. In the event, to coach reached Poznań at 11:30. Plenty of time for us to our way to the Market Square, Stary Rynek. The secret was revealed. We were here to see the Town Hall clock in operation. The automaton clock on the Ratusz tower performs at Noon ... read more

“It looks just like Indiana and the Temple of Doom”, squeaked someone nervously at the rear of our group. Indeed, the two mining carts did look like the ones in the subterranean chase scene in that movie. In two lines, we shuffled penguin-like into the rusty steel cage of the elevator. At the double bell rings, resembling the sound of a pinball machine, the metal doors of the elevator clanged shut. The whole theme park experience was intensified when we were sent whistling downwards through the mine galleries. Gusts of wind buffeted us as the shuddering cage sped downwards to the tourist trail of the mine some 600 m below ground level. We were in the Kłodawa Salt Mine, the biggest operating salt mine in Poland. From the bus, the draw works for the mine could ... read more

We think our trip needs to be re-named, Jill and Shane's Underground Tour of Europe! We arrived to a bitterly cold, rainy Krakow, and decided an indoor activity was our only option. So we signed up for a tour of an underground salt-mine. Now if that fills you with dread, don't panic....I was similarly sceptical! BUT.........we spent three hours underground in one of the most intriguing and beautiful places we've ever experienced. If you travel nowhere else on this earth in your life-time, come to Krakow, and visit this UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has earned this status for good reason....... The salt-miners of Kraków, while enduring centuries of hardship, created one of the most unique places in the world. We descended into the mine via hundreds of wooden steps, with our delightful young Polish guide, ... read more

Poznan Stare Zoo is the far smaller and inferior of Poznan’s two zoos. Though Stare Zoo wasn’t all bad and nothing was really terrible, just not that impressive with rather too many domestics for my liking. The Stare zoo is a very old zoo and I believe the oldest continuously operating zoo in Poland and was Poznan’s main zoo before the tiny size of the facility necessitated a larger zoo to be built though they are both under the same management. As a result the zoo has a lot of history associated with it including former exhibits that would be considered unsuitable for the species that they were originally intended for but they have since been re-purposed for other species. The entrance to the zoo is free and I believe it is officially a public park ... read more