Around Poland

For me it was an important trip. I haven't been to many places for such a long time. Now, lukewarm, I can see more and different issues.

We went to Łódź, Warszawa (Warsaw), Kraków (Cracow) and in the Tatra Mountains to Zakopane.

Thanks to my friends I realized that Poland is about history, about II World War and communism. It is present in every city, in the town houses, squares, monuments, but what's more important in people memories and longings. History of Poland is not only history of Poles. Jews used to create our culture, cites ( Łódź!), cuisine, tradition.

Well, the trip was also about food. About meat: lard, shashlyk, sausages, blood pudding, bacon...

I like Warsaw a bit more, though I will never become a fun of the Centre (this would never and shouldn't be a polish Manhattan or whatever, we are not US or Shanghai). I always loved Nowe Miasto. After years of struggle Nowy Świat and Krakowskie Przedmieście look like a main street in European capital with unique slavish atmosphere. My place in the city was and will be Praga, disconnected and out of the way, authentic, if you listen carefully you can here bands playing Grzesiuk.

I never liked Kraków. It was so bohemian, so avant-garde, so Galician (as we say ironically in polish) and cliché...I had my favourite place- Kazimierz, which I still love...but unfortunately it gets more and more commercial, touristic the spirit starts disappearing... I fell in love into Bazylika Mariacka and it's deep ultramarine ceiling with golden stars and Wit Stwosz altar (as powerful as The Garden of Earthly Delights). The interior is a masterpiece of craft. You can feel slavish spirit in every single detail, in the colours used, in the amount of light penetrating the interior through the stained glass, in the textures used.