Blogs from Lower Silesian, Poland, Europe - page 3

What was to be a quiet last day, turned out to be a day of discovery and Awards. I could never have imagined by the end of the day we would be back in Wroclaw, having looted the village of Karpacz of one of its finest trophys. With the guidance and encouragement from our coach/ mentor, Marek, Tim and I entered 2 events, acquitted ourselves well, and walked away with an equal fourth in the’Egg Breaking Endurance Event ‘ ( me) while Tim failed narrowly with an overpowered throw in the ‘Hit The Mayor In The Head With An Egg’ event. Sue and I did manage to walk away with the ‘Competitor Who Travelled The Furthest Award’, a prize of a crystal egg from the Egg Appreciation Society and a certificate marking the occasion. Sue‘s was ... read more

Before we go too far, none of the above are directly related. Well, Poland does have public toilets and we arrived on a Ryan Airline flight, but stay with me here. Bright blue skies took the edge off our, at times,140kmh trip to the Brussels Sud Airport, and with booked parking and a free shuttle bus we arrived with time to spare. Tim had an exam in the morning which limited our travel time but Natalia had us there, safely ( she’d want me to add that) , in time to pass the military check and the airport security check. ( As a side note, wherever Sue sees the word SUD, she thinks we’re approaching a laundromat.) Alicia, Natalia’s mum, met us with big smiles and hugs and we were soon parked in the peak hour ... read more

The hostel provided a free breakfast, which I helped myself to. When reading reviews of the place online, I loved how some people were moaning about how basic the breakfast was. It's a hostel, it is cheap, be thankful you are getting free food at all people. Tea, toast and cereal filled me up nicely and set off to explore some more of Wroclaw. I had decided to head over to Cathedral Island and explore some of the surrounding midtown section of the city. I headed up through the Old Town, near the Town Hall, but up a different street that I hadn't explored the previous day. Once again, the style of the buildings reminded me a lot of those I had seen in South East Germany. I saw the former St. Joseph boarding school, which ... read more

This morning we enjoyed a great buffet breakfast at the family owned Hotel Stekl. We then left Bohemian Paradise National Park, heading for Wroclaw in Poland. Wroclaw (pronounced Vrotswaf in Polish, known as Breslau in German) is the largest city in western Poland. The history of the city dates back a thousand years, and its extensive heritage combines almost all religions and cultures of Europe. At various times, it has been part of Poland, Bohemia, Prussia, and Germany. It became part of Poland in 1945, as a result of the border changes after the Second World War. Prior to the war it had been part of Germany. Wrocław is a university city with a student population of over 130,000, having a similar number of university students as Berlin, which is a substantially larger city. In ancient ... read more

Friday we were back on the job, doing various jobs such as painting the fence, shoveling sand, laying pavers, bagging clay pellets, and assembling rebar cages. Maciejka and the girls made us a delicious lunch of homemade kielbasa soup and salad with fresh veggies from their next door neighbor. By the time we got back to Wrocław in the evening, the sunny day had turned into rain, but we walked around a bit and enjoyed dinner at a local brewery/restaurant.... read more