Blogs from Subcarpathian, Poland, Europe

Today we hopped into our rental car and left Kraków. We headed towards Pstragowa, which is a small city east of Kraków where my ancestors lived before immigrating to the United States. It was about a 2 hour drive, with some stops along the way! We stopped at a gas station for "lunch," and I bought a Twix candy bar. My mom double-checked on the label to see if there was any tree nuts, but I had already taken a few bites. Back home, I am perfectly fine to eat Twix bars, but I cannot in Poland. There were traces of hazelnuts, so I had to take a few benadryl to feel better (thank goodness it wasn't anything serious). Pstragowa has one main road, which took us through the town. In total, a car ride through ... read more

We settled down in Przemysl rail station to wait for our return chariot to Rzeszow. The waiting room was nice and warm and must have been too comfortable. We were now experts in the pronounciation and were possibly sat congratulating ourselves. We could say where we'd been......... "Shem shell" ........ or is it "Shem ish"........ and to where we were heading back to ..........."Chez ow". The latter must be said at speed or they will still look at you as though you've just landed from the moon. Mind, plenty of people do that at work and there is a big difference between Teesside and the moon. There was a misjudgement in how long it would take to wander across to Platform 3, but we made it with a few minutes to spare. It could have transpired ... read more

After the football distraction of the previous day, the Man in the Middle was on a mission. The nearest information he had was that his old man hailed from these parts, before WW2 intervened and circumstances meant that he had a spell under duress making ball bearings in a foreign land. The details are scarce. The exact route to the UK is even more of mystery, but what is known meant leaving Przemysl sometime in the years after 1941 and rolling up in the UK after the cessation of hostilities. Alas, there is no BBC TV crew on this trip with us to point him in the right direction of all things family tree and it was always going to be just a trip to be into the dark. We left Rzeszow on the regional train. ... read more

The mother tongue was not English, as the Ryanair plane taxied across the runway. We were on the commuter express from Mansfield of wherever and most passengers were just heading home for the weekend to see the folks. Ryanair have a new plan to get you to check bags into the hold. A maximum of 90 carry-on pieces allowed and our stuff was placed in the hold free of charge. It was a bit irritating and transpired to cost us any chance of getting the bus to town in Rzeszow. The girl on the information desk helpfully pointed out that 10 minutes ago we had a bus, but now we had a 1 hour 50 wait. A taxi will be 59 Zloty. It was a very precise figure and true to her word, came in spot ... read more

www.theredquest.com Okay, put your hands up if you've heard of Rzeszow. Thought not. Well neither had I. But that was until I went on a website that sifted through every flight to depart from Manchester Airport on New Year's Day. The result was a Ryanair to Rzeszow. But where the hell was Rzeszow? After a bit of Googling, I found out Rzeszow was in southwest Poland, quite near the Ukrainian border. It was a fairly large city, with a population of just under 200,000, and judging by the photos I found, it had a nice old town with a pleasing central square. There was only one more thing I needed to know, and that was how to pronounce it. Was it something like Res-zow? Or perhaps Zez-ow? Or was it Res-oh? No, the actual way to ... read more