INTO THE MOUNTAINS

At the end of the 14^th century monks from Hungary established a monastery at Częstochowa.  A Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary was taken there and the shrine of Jasna Gora established.  It rapidly became a major place of pilgrimage and today is visited by about five million pilgrims each year.  The icon is now at the heart of a complex of beautiful churches, museums and associated buildings.  Although also visited by thousands of tourists each year, Jasna Gora has maintained an air of reverence and worship.  And, to our surprise, access to all the public buildings is free.

Surrounding the park outside are some interesting modern sculptures representing the Stations of the Cross.

In Częstochowa itself, where there are eight universities, we found other interesting sculptures some of which are suspended on wires.

From Częstochowa we headed east and south towards the mountains and came to a lovely little town called Kazimierz Dolny on the Wisła river.

We were able to cycle along the river bank promenade to go to the farmers’ market and visit the town.

Many of the buildings have roofs with long, narrow interlocking wooden tiles.

Our next port of call was Zamość where the town walls and moat are being carefully restored.

On the Sunday morning the Market Place was filled with spectators and dance groups from all over Europe taking part in an International Folk Dance Festival

Continuing our journey we spent a night at Przeworsk (where there be elephants!) ...

... before reaching Ustrzyki Gόrne, a village in the densely forested Bieszczady National Park.  Road signs warn you to beware of bears but there are also wild boar, and lynx still living there.  From there we climbed 600 metres to the summit of Tarnica (1346m) on a hot, sunny day.

We had a great view from the top across the border with Ukraine ...

... and managed to get back to the camp site before a terrific thunder storm hit us.

We moved on to a very pleasant holiday resort beside a huge reservoir at Solina, spoilt only by the dozens of cheap souvenir stalls, fast food outlets and a fairground. 

But these were almost invisible from the site.

RETURN TO POLAND

We are back on our travels again and now in Poland!  Jane’s broken arm has healed very well and the physiotherapy exercises that she does with total dedication have restored about 90% of movement, enabling her to do almost everything she wants or needs to do.  Hopefully the last 10% will come back over the next few weeks.

Wendy gave John a trip on the West Somerset Railway for Father’s Day …

… and we took the opportunity to get off before the train reached Minehead in order to visit the lovely old village of Dunster. 

The weather was great and we had a lovely day out.  Over our wedding anniversary we stayed near Dungeness where we visited the RSPB Reserve …

… and saw the narrow gauge Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

We crossed the Channel on 6th July and travelled across Belgium and Germany, mostly on motorways as we wanted to get to Poland as quickly as we could.  However, on the way we did stop off at Colditz and visited the famous Castle where many Allied prisoners of war were kept. 

They all had a record of escape attempts from other prison camps and the castle was thought to be escape proof.  This did not deter them from making more attempts, some of which were successful.  The museum there contains lots of interesting artefacts made by prisoners there to help their escapes.

This time we are visiting the south of Poland and we headed to a site in the town of Jelenia Gόra.  Unfortunately the “Tour of Poland” bike race was taking place there and we couldn’t cross the circuit to get to the site until about 8.00 pm.  The town has a pleasant market place and town hall surrounded by old merchants’ houses.

While there we attempted to go for a walk in the hills but were defeated by a sudden thunder storm.

Our next port of call – Wroclaw (pronounced Vrotslav) – suffered badly from Soviet bombardment during World War 2 but many of the old buildings have been carefully restored.  We stayed on a site at the Olympic Stadium (we couldn’t discover which Olympics!) and travelled into the centre on the modern, fast, punctual and cheap tram.  In the centre the buildings, dating from the early 20^th century, were similar to many we have seen in North and Eastern Europe, centred on a magnificent market place , this one large enough to have a whole block of buildings, including the Town Hall in its centre.

As well as the houses of the rich merchants there is a street of old artisan’s’ workshops with some delightful bronze farm animals.

Scattered around the city centre are also some tiny sculptures (about 6 inches tall) of gnomes depicting the activities taking place in each place.  This little man was standing outside the University.