Strawberry Fields Forever

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Those of you who know me well know that I suffer from a constant need for organisation. Spontaneity is not my strong point and doing nothing is somewhat akin to hell for me. And so the past couple of weeks have been impossibly challenging, and completely rewarding.

We've spent the past few days hanging out at my aunt and uncle's farm in Mazury and pretty much enjoying the good life. Once Nemo finished writing his last blog, we took a trip to the lake and while my uncle and Nemo paddled off in a row boat to indulge in a spot of fishing, I went for a most glorious swim in the largest lake in Mazury. Fresh water, shallow and warm and with nothing more dangerous than a rogue killer seagull to threaten me I took off for some quiet time of my own. This sent my uncle and Dominika into a bit of a panic as they saw me 100m, 200m, 300m offshore, though Nemo assured them I'd be fine.

I finished my swim and had a beer on shore while we waited for Nemo and Wujek to come back, at which Dominika and I were hussled into the boat and I was relegated to rowing duty while Nemo fished and Wujek directed me towards the reeds. The boys managed a haul of 5 small (and when I say small, I mean tiny) orange finned perch which we photographed and celebrated a great deal about on the way home. Needless to say, supper was delightful. My fish eating technique, however, left something to be desired. The amount of bones I found in my mouth as I chewed was surely reminiscient of snacking on echidna.

Next day was an epic adventure, visiting some of the attractions in Mazury. We got out and about late. Notice how this word keeps coming up? I was slowly going mental.But after much meandering, we finally got underway and on to the park of wild animals. This place has tons of various local wildlife roaming about the place. There were deer (including a beautiful white stag), European lynx, moose, eagles, hedgehogs, squirrels, mountain goats, eagles, owls, storks (no babies), wolves and their cubs and heaps more - and all making more piles of smelly poo than prunes day at the old folks home. It was awesome - they mostly walk about these big fields (covered in poo) that you can walk though (whilst dodging the poo); between which are big ladders that you have to navigate over to get to the next field. This proved a great source of amusement for us, watching white, uncoordinated tour group people try and get themselves, their kids and their giant cameras over, without falling into the stinging nettle underneath.

The tour guide was great - knew what she was talking about and also wore the most itty bitty shorts you ever saw, which kept Nemo well entertained (Fishy edit - She was like 16, this is a farce, but I’ll concede that the shorts were truly tiny). This was a fortuitous trade off, as the thing that Mr Fish had wanted to see more than anything else was, of course, sadly absent. The last Bison that had lived at the park died a couple of years ago. RIP Hubert: No Zubr for us ;o(

From the park we adventured onward and upward to Mikolajki - a village and port town on the lake, and Nemo’s favourite because it’s his name town. The place is gorgeous, if exceptionally touristy. Being summertime, there are people all over the joint, some of who rent sail boats and spend a week or two sailing between the lakes and stopping at places like this for the night. The bars were pumping and the restaurants numerous, so we stopped for a quick bite to eat.

Mikolaji is located on the other side of the lake to where our little farm is, on the biggest lake in Mazury. During the winter it freezes over and you can walk, skate and even drive over to the other side of it. A totally insane concept for us and something we'd love to come back and see in winter sometime. As it was summer though, we were hot and in for a treat at one of the local hotels.

Dominika took us to a baths/spa/water park place that has pretty much every pool thing you can imagine - health spas, saunas, lap pools, wave pools, chill out pools, ice caves, herpes and most importantly, water slides. While everyone else headed for the mud infused jacuzzi, Nemo and I bolted straight for the water slides. There are 2 main types there. One is called the Onion (“Cebula”), and starts with a steeply inclined tunnel that washes you down pretty fast into a spherical chamber. You are whisked around at breakneck speeds before experiencing what I would like to consider fast-forward water birthing; you flop headfirst out the bottom, screaming, into warm water. We were hooked.

The other slides were just run of the mill water slides that were about 4 storeys high and had 3 speeds. As much as I dislike most types of rides, I have to admit that when water is involved, I tend to giggle like a baby and go back over and over again. The only downside to the water park was that it was quite pricey - 30 zloty to get in and that is only for 1.5 hours. After that you have to pay another 5 for each half hour. Still, it was worth it for the sea salt spa at the end. Mmmmmmmm.....

We eventually headed back to the car and slowly back to the farm. We stopped on the way to buy some kielbasa for the camp fire that night and within half an hour we were back. While everyone was pottering around doing not much (nothing new there) I decided to try my hand (and butt) at riding the bike down to the local shop. The road down to town is unpaved and quite sandy, and the recent rain had made some sensational potholes in it. Not to worry, off I went, in a rather zig-zag fashion at first, with Nemo suppressing mirth behind me.

I must say, this ride has gone down in the memoirs as one of the most brilliant experiences I had while in Mazury. I was alone and in silence, surrounded by green and gold fields and small hills, with the lake shining off in the distance and wildflowers of every colour all around. At some point, a little old man was riding in front of me on some ancient relic resembling a bicycle, long pants, short sleeved shirt open and flapping in the breeze, and a cute little hat. I couldn't imagine anything more picturesque. The scenery that is. Not the old fella.

That night we had kielbasa and potatoes around the campfire, joined by the guests from Krakow and Wujek's artist friends from his time at school in Belgium. Red wine and fine weather made up for the swarm of mozzies that threatened to devour our little group. But our radioactive, bottle o’ death Thai repellent soon put a stop to all that, as well as any chance of ever having children.

At this point Dominika came up with the genius plan of going to Gdansk for the night and seeing Malbork castle on the way. We were to leave the next day. The next day dawned, breakfast was had, plans were made, and after searching for Dominika for half an hour, and realising she was having a nap, we delayed to the following day. Everything is just so... chilled... Nemo adapts nicely, as usual, while I struggle with my natural inclination to sprout a few more grey hairs.

But hark! All was not lost, dear readers (you can exhale now). The patch of alpine strawberries (poziomki) that is on the farm has started to become infested with some evil grubs. The little bastards are mercilessly slaughtering them from the roots with marvellously large appetites. In order to save as many as I could, I took off with a basket and high hopes to pick as many as I could for salvage. I could totally picture myself as Aleks, a.k.a. little red riding hood in the get up (short shorts, basket, sadly no cape). After an hour or so, my basket half full and my back begging for reprieve, I skipped back to the house to show off my wares. There is something so satisfying about eating fruit that is still warm from being outside and is actually ripened on the bush it grew on. They were delicious and everyone appreciated my effort, so I basked a little and then I basked a little more. Then I stopped basking when a young lad stopped by the farm selling mushrooms and blueberries. We bought 3 litres of the berries and I could only imagine how long that had taken him to pick. My measly half basket was a small fraction of what he had brought.

Somewhere during the morning we had a somewhat... unusual breakfast. Ciocia had bought an ostrich egg the day before and as the guests from Krakow were leaving that day we had an omelette/souffle type thing made from the ostrich egg and herbs from the garden. In order to extract the eggs stuff from the shell, Nemo donned some boxing gloves (top of the range in safety gear) and held the egg while Wujek drilled a hole in it. The egg smelled delicious - like normal eggs only more subtle and creamier. The taste... well, Australia, get thyself to the ostrich farms. It's brilliant - one egg is the equivalent of about 10 hens eggs. Bonus!

The evening was spent having some girlie time with Dominika and Ciocia while the boys went off fishing and being manly again, though supper was crepes with fresh blueberries and my strawberries. It was divine.

The next day we headed off for the next part of our adventure, this time unplanned. We had no clean clothes or any idea of where we were really going but it all seemed like a good idea at the time. We were meant to head off at 9am, get to Malbork at 12, and be in Gdansk by about 5pm. Ah ha ha ha!!! We didn't leave the farm until 10:45.

We got to Malbork about 4pm after encountering terrible weather on the way and having about eleventy billion stops. Happily, the sun was shining, just as it did on one of my two sunny days last time I was here in Winter. Nemo, having slept all the way there, woke to find he was sitting outside the largest brick castle in all of Europe.

Well what can I say, the place is astounding. Construction of Malbork began in the 1270’s by the Teutonic Knights. Poland, on the verge of disappearing for the umpteenth time in history, called the Knights in to help defend it’s borders. The Knights set up Malbork as a kind of command base, and later decided that Poland was worth taking for themselves, but more on that later. The castle is made up of the High Castle (Monastery), the Middle Castle (HQ of the Grand Master and the Grand Commander, the political and administrative centre of the Teutonic Order State) and the Low Castle which housed all the utility facilities. The fortress remained unconquered for over 600 years despite countless attempts until, you guessed it, the Germans put it on their “to blow up” list during the war.

Being cheap, Dominika and I convinced Mr Fish to stay outside one corner of the castle to count the bricks - a very important job. This was a cheap way to save on entrance fees as we know he can only count to 10, 20 if he has his socks off, 5 if his other hand is in his pocket. Just kidding Fishy - I love you.

The castle used to have three moats, none of which still hold water, but the trenches are still there. We walked through the five gates into the main square, and were then taken through various parts of the building by our excellent tour guide. We learned how the castle was heated (underground furnaces), saw the kitches where food was prepared (cheese in hanging baskets away from the meeses) and how to find the toilet (follow the constipated gargoyles to the giant crapper with the cabbage leaves). The highlight was the church itself; still intact after so long even with ze Germans using it for target practice, looking totally legitimately old and creepy. The true scope of what we saw in our three and a half hours was boggling and there just wasn’t enough time to see everything. We may go back, especially considering that Nemo will probably still only be half way along the front wall by then.

Once we took off from Malbork, we headed straight for Gdansk as Dominika was getting really tired of driving on the idiotic Polish roads. Seriously - road planners - take note! Your roads are atrocious, no one pays the least attention to the speed limits, the shoulders are treated as a slow car lanes, the potholes big enough to hold the Opera House and the trucks have no regard for anyone. Drivers - the lines in the middle of the road are for separating lanes, not what you aim for!

Gdansk proved to be an extremely fortuitous trip, as Ula's daughter had rented a new apartment in the old town which she hadn't moved into yet and we were allowed use of it for our stay. Hooray! Free stuff!

Once we finally arrived in town, tired and ready to get out of the car, it was about 9pm ... the perfect time for the games to begin. First, sans map, we had to ask squillions of people where the street was that we were staying on. No one knew. Finally Dominika stumbled upon a taxi driver with GPS and got the directions we needed.

This didn't stop us from promptly getting lost. When we found the roundabout that we needed, we couldn't find the street. Once we found the street, the key to the building didn't work. Once we found the back entrance and got to the 3rd floor, the door’s lock proved a puzzle that only MacGyver could break, at which I was almost prepared to sleep in the car. Only Dominika's patience finally got us through. And then, the reward for our toils; the apartment was beautiful with views over an ancient mill and down to a convent and church. We quickly dumped our stuff and got ready to hit the town. Dominika did the same at a slightly slower pace, and a couple of hours later we were ready to leave.

And now folks, we have a winner! As much as we love Krakow and have found the sweeter side of Warsaw, Gdansk is a town that we could really live in and love. Sitting pretty on the Baltic Sea, it is part of a 3 town city comprising of Gdynia, Sopot and Gdansk. Its history is interesting as it spent the past centuries as an independent and free port city, dealing with much of the trade between central Europe and Scandinavia. It only became part of true Poland after the war - score! As such the architecture reflects the many influences on the city - Polish, Prussian and Dutch the most prevalent. We wandered around admiring the old town (huge compared to Krakow's and Warsaw's) and indulged in a late night greasy kebab and beer.

Next day we were off and racing again, walking around old town by day. One of the key exports for this area is amber - extracted from the Baltic Sea, and there is stunning silver and amber jewellery in street stalls all through Gdansk. It is seriously cheap too. I got myself a ring with 3 amber stones - green, white and yellow set in silver for $18.

Although Gdansk is by the sea, the old town and touristy areas are located further onshore, down a major canal. We found a floating hostel where we had some unpasteurised beer and enjoyed the sun and sea breeze and thus fortified we ventured off to see the churches of Gdansk.

There is a Mariacki Church here (as in Krakow) and, like it’s sister bible-bashery, it is dead set massive. The under-reconstruction tower reaches 78m up. This was followed by St Nicholas’ Church, which was the only one not damaged during the war. Nemo was well chuffed that his church was the sole survivor. By this stage, I was getting seriously over Poland’s abundance of churches and Dominika was pretty keen to show us the jewel of the area: Sopot.

Sopot is one of the tri-cities and is just north of Gdansk. It’s architecture is much newer, being mostly late 19th and early 20th century. I cracked up when we got there, as the place looks a whole lot like some of the older suburbs of Sydney. Most importantly, Sopot has a beach, though I confess to a few giggles when I saw it. Squillions of people lining the shore in their uber tight Euro cozzies and inflatable pool toys. The water looked uninviting - a little brown, and I was sure it would be freezing. After all, this is the Baltic Sea. Still, I promised Mum I’m get in, and after wading in a little, the water proved a lot warmer than I’d thought. So I went for a swim, mask and snorkel in tow (in case I found some amber) only to find that the underwater visibility was about 10cms. Joy. The Baltic is also much less salty than our ocean. No idea why, but there you are.

After my swim, we pottered along the boardwalk and checked out a bit more of Sopot - it is basically a sea side resort type place with a couple of giant hotels along the water and lots of overpriced coffee. Still, it’s quite pretty and having an ocean breeze was magic after being land locked for so long.

Once we got back to Gdansk it was starting to lean heavily towards wine o’clock and Dominika and I had seen a lovely wine bar the night before... somewhere around Gdansk. So the mission of finding the wine bar began. And continued. For over an hour. But we eventually found it and had a ball trying different wines. The lady came out and asked what sort of wines we liked, and once we’d described what we felt like she brought out the exact, perfect ones we wanted. Dominika was onto a Portuguese rose and we went for a German Riesling. After 3 glasses of wine, feeling a little toasted, we went to get some food and saw another wine bar. Hooray! So in we popped and began the whole routine again. Only this time the place was a little fancier and the guy bought out some wines in a special leather carry case and began presenting them to us. Our hearts started to flutter as we figured out that this place was a little beyond our means. Nemo was nearly beside himself with laughter. And when Dominika asked the price of the bottles, they were about 150 zloty. With great embarrassment, we had to admit that it was a little beyond our means and that we had just been paying 8 zloty per glass. The waiter, with great grace, said that he should be able to find something in the vicinity of 15 zloty if that would suit us. We said yes please, devoured the free bread, drank our wine and tottled off to the late night toasted sandwich place for a feed.

Next day was back to Warsaw day, only on the way we wanted to pop by to a place called Grunwald. This is a town where in 1410, the Polish armies defeated the Teutonic Knights who were at the time trying to take over Poland. With much excitement we planned to go to the battlefield as we happened to be going past on the anniversary of the battle and there was to be a recreation of the battle itself. We left a little late, dropped off the keys, took over an hour to drink a coffee and then got stuck in major traffic jams. And as we pulled up at Grundwald, parked the car, got out, the cannon went off to mark the end of the battle and people started to disperse. D’oh! We had a kielbasa to celebrate and headed back to Warsaw.

In between doing 5 loads of washing and trying to get our acts together in time for leaving again on Thursday, we have managed to see a riot (Mad), meet with my uncle Leszek (The Man) for lunch, go to Krzysiek’s band’s rehearsal, blog a little and pack for Mazury. We also had an upheaval of sorts. Dominika scored $150 return tickets to Sardinia for the 1st to 15th of August. So we’re putting off our trip to Croatia and going to Sardinia instead. As you do. For now we’re in Mazury for Ciocia’s 50th birthday celebrations, returning on Monday and doing more washing in time to jet off to Italy. Hard life, hey?

;o)

-- AW

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Photos

Stork's Nest
Mazury, Poland

Over the Ladders
Mazury, Poland

Deer at the Park of Wild Animals
Mazury, Poland

Wolf Cubs
Mazury, Poland

Eagles
Mazury, Poland

The White Stag
Mazury, Poland

European Lynx
Mazury, Poland

Moose!
Mazury, Poland

Nemo Contemplating Life
Mazury, Poland

Wolf
Mazury, Poland

Mikolajki
Mazury, Poland

Mikolajki
Mazury, Poland

Water Park, Mikolajki
Mazury, Poland

Water Park, Mikolajki
Mazury, Poland

Water Park, Mikolajki
Mazury, Poland

Sausages on the Campfire - Hooray!
Mazury, Poland

The Main Gate
Malbork Castle, Poland

The Dining Hall
Malbork Castle, Poland

The Kitchen
Malbork Castle, Poland

One of the Moats
Malbork Castle, Poland

Nemo in the Middle Castle
Malbork Castle, Poland