Our last full day in Poland

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After the euphoria of yesterdays coal fired steam train ride we needed something to keep up the momentum but it was always going to be hard to top.However,we have booked ourselves a room at a ‘manor house’as described on booking.com so we see shall see what that brings when we get to our destination.

We really are now convinced it isn’t always overcast in Poland as the sun is brightly shining again as we readied ourselves for the drive northwest to a place so small it doesn’t even feature on the extensive Philips European atlas we have with us.We have however been able to find the ‘locality’on Google maps and Vicky has the name in her memory bank.

It had been an excellent stay in this very well equipped and appointed apartment just outside of Poznan and it would be fabulous if we could replicate this a few more times as we continue the adventure.

The roading system and in particular the highways in and around Poznan have had a lot of money spent on them in recent years and whether that is because it is close to the German border and has lots of tourists visiting from Germany who expect straight,high speed roads we are not sure but that seems to be a good answer with the right result.

By a series of complicated turns onto and off about 4 different motorways Vicky negotiated a path for us to get on our way.As we made the last change of highway we commented to each other that we could never have managed this route using the method of writing down instructions from Google maps as we did 4 years ago and that GPS is the only way to go.

As we left Poznan behind we could smell that delectable aroma of coffee beans roasting and then we noticed a large building with a sign stating it was McDonalds(the hamburger chain)and we concluded that it was where their coffee is prepared for their McCafes.

The R2 provided motorway driving all the way to Gorzow Wialkopolski(the name is so long that is abbreviated on road signs to GorWialk)and we stopped in to the small city for a break to find a Rossmans to check out whether they sold shampoo Gretchen needed and to find a jeweller to get the battery in my watch replaced.We have both now needed new batteries in our watches since we have been away from NZ despite having new ones placed in them 3 or 4 months before we headed away.Is this another sign of the inferior quality goods NZ retailers are selling?

Rossmans didn’t have the shampoo but I get did the battery replaced in my watch and at a cost less than half of what I had paid in NZ!!Sorry to bleat on about the difference in prices for goods and services between NZ and Europe but there are some things that just don’t add up for us back home.

We shall of course see just how long the battery lasts.

North of GW we had more highway running on the E65 and although these roads tend to take straight lines through open countryside to get to their destination and are often less interesting,the alternative here was through much the same territory we have been driving through for the last couple of weeks and you can only take so much scenery of wheat in the fields!

One thing we can say is that the scenery the BBA V2 has seen around much of Eastern Europe once we got Bulgaria and Romania and outside of the towns where we have stayed and the occasional attraction on the way,has been very much the same,flat open spaces with crops being grown.Crossing to Poland through Slovakia did provide a brief respite with some mountains.

We split from the E65 onto the R3 and then the rather rural R144 and took a slightly more northerly direction towards Lake Miedwie at the top of which the manor house was located.

The section of road was down to virtually one lane width and thankfully in the dry dusty conditions, was sealed.

We weren’t disappointed as we drove through the gates of the property to find a stately two storied building with a gold topped band rotunder and manicured grounds.Our first thought was that we could have a game of golf croquet on the lawn if only we/they had the equipment, such was smooth state of them.

We could have driven around the driveway and stopped outside the main door but thought that might be a little presumptious so we opted for a car park and walked through the wide main door.Our first impression were...wow!....is the BBA V2 in the right place with all the dark polished timber,circular wooden stairs to the upper storey,large comfy chairs in the library etc etc.

Well,yes,we were in the right place but we were quickly bought down to earth when the receptionist confirmed she had our reservation and that for the price we had paid,Zloty144 or €41 our room was located in an outbuilding!!What a way to let us down,she could have left off the ‘outbuilding’bit and we would have been none the wiser.

So she escorted us to our room where Gretchen immediately smelt that a smoker had been in there and informed the receptionist that we had reserved a non smoking room and that is what we expected.The young woman looked a bit put out but couldn’t deny the room had that after smell of tobacco even though there was an obvious non smoking room sign on the door.She showed us the room next door which got the approval of Gretchen’s nose.

The room was nicely decorated with tasteful furnishings that you might find in a stately home but we will never know what the rooms upstairs in the big house looked like for our Zloty144!

We have stayed in a few places which served dinner and we were ready for a meal out,and this was one of them.However,like all the others it didn’t have a menu in the room compendium which we find odd if they wanted to encourage people to eat in their restaurant.

It was just as well then that we had got in supplies earlier in the day just in case there had not been a restaurant nearby.

We took a walk down to the lake through a forested area and found a number of families there enjoying the late afternoon warm sun and even a few in swimming in what looked like fairly murky water.We haven’t yet got over how people in this part of the world seem to be contented to swim in any old quality of water.

We took a different track back to the manor house and our room in the outbuilding and after passing a number of fairly basic brick and plaster houses with dates that showed they had been built in the mid to late 1930’s.Behind them were extremely basic dwellings with just a door and a window and looked like that they were now being used as garages or storage.We then noticed what would have been an even grander house than where we were staying.It had obviously been the ‘squires’ home and we took from the basic dwellings we had just passed that this would have been where the peasants who worked the land would have lived.

It seemed that time,WW2 and socialist rule had changed where the current landowners and their workers lived today.



For the first time in several weeks we found ourselves walking rather than driving next to a vast field of wheat that stretched from the road to as far as we could see.We have watched the grains change from various shades of green during our travels since mid spring to the golden yellow colours they are now as harvest time is nearing.

We had our pre dinner drinks at a table out on the lawn and watched two chefs cook meat skewers on a BBQ and then as a waitress came to set a table for some guests who were going to have dinner we retreated indoors to reheat our dinner we had purchased earlier at Tescos.



Tomorrow we cross the Polish/German border and bring the Eastern European section of the BBA V2 to an end.

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