Poland is on a high. Not only have they recently seen the beatification of their beloved John Paul II, but Poland has just taken over the Presidency of the European Union, and with that comes an opportunity to showcase Polish culture. All around the areas of Poland we visited were banners and signs celebrating the beatification, and the EU.
However, there was one aspect of Poland that can't be celebrated.....Polish roads!
Polish roads lead to some delightful cities, like fairy-tale old town Wroclaw where we spent a couple of days and nights in an apartment above a pub. But they also lead to some grim places, like Auschwicz where we spent a couple of hours. Generally Polish roads are horrendous and we were relieved to leave them behind, unscathed (well, a tiny chip in the windscreen the only known damage).
Often it appeared that roadworks had begun, but the road was left in such a mess of potholes and drop-offs that it was difficult to know. Signage was no help for within the space of 200m there could be anything up to 6 speed limit signs, ranging from 40kph up to 80kph then back to 50kph, then 100, then just 50 meters later back to 40kph. In a few areas the left 'lane' had a 70kph speed limit sign and the 'right' lane (same direction) had a 40kph sign! Roads were sometimes closed with no detour signs or alternate routes....just closed and Dotty our GPS was working overtime!
Funny stuff....but lovely country. We enjoyed trying Polish cuisine; pierogi (dumplings), schabowy (pork schnitzel) and something we never thought we would eat....homemade lard! Delicious.
We did have a little difficulty attempting to learn a few Polish words. For example, the words' thank you' and 'please' are always good to learn first. In Polish thank you is "dziekuji". Easy enough, I thought, until we learned that by stressing the second syllable, instead of the first, we were actually saying 'no, thank you'. To make matters worse if we put the stress on the third syllable we were told that people would think we were trying to impersonate someone from Warsaw or just trying to make fun of someone. If you say "dziekuji" while paying a bill in a restaurant it indicates that they can keep the change! Please is no easier. The word is "prosze", but it can mean please, come in, next, after you, you're welcome, don't mention it and half a dozen other things! We had no more luck with the Polish language than we did with the Polish road signs.
 |
| See what I mean? |
 |
| Where is the road? |
 |
| Wroclaw's beautiful Gothic Ratusz |
 |
| Wroclaw Film Festival time - set up in Wroclaw's stunning old town square |
 |
We had dinner in the restaurant in the basement
of the Ratusz. Piwnica Swidniker calls itself the oldest
restaurant in Europe! It opened in 1273. |
 |
All around Wroclaw are these charming gnomes. Apparently they
are a tribute to a political movement during the communist era. |
 |
| No words necessary |
No comments:
Post a Comment