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Next couple of days in Poland: Grybów, Tarnów
After our last night in Kraków we bought a train ticket, following the Lonely Planet's advice, to the regions below Kraków, near the Carpathian mountains. We went for a small hike, starting in Grybów, running though a number of (even) smaller villages up through a few hills and besides a beautifull lake.
However. Thanks to the amazing transportation systems we arrived at Grybów only at 21h, and we had no idea where our starting point was.
Eventually we ended up in the local pizzeria sheltering for the rain (which had been pouring out of the sky all day), and after a huge, ketchup-drowned pizza we still decided to go for it.
Lesson 1 in hiking: Do not start off after a long day when it's dark and when it's raining cats and dogs. Though after an hour's search, taking some detours and crossing a railroad on a less-than-ideal spot, we found the track, which started off as a steep climb (over a road though) up, and that turned out to be a little too much.
After about 10 to 15 kilometers we found ourselves demotivated enough to take the small nearby field as an opportunity to test our 2-second tent.
And although Irene checked the grounds, we learned lesson 1 and 2 of putting up tents thoroughly here:
Don't put it near old trees, because their roots have come up and grown all around. And make sure your tent ground is level before you put your stuff in. We had to move our tent 3 times to get things right, getting just about everything wet in the process. But we finally settled in.
Goodnight.
After a quiet night of camping in the open we woke up to the soothing sound of water coming down on our tent. It was raining. Again. Cats and dogs. Again. A quick navigational glance showed us we had to climb at least another 15 km with full gear through the pouring rain, after we packed up and moved out. After some deliberation we decided to end the hikingchapter, at least for this holiday.
We packed up, turned around and walked back to the railway station of the tiny spek of Grybów and took the train back. We first planned on travelling straight on, but we ended up on a nice camping (we had to use our tent after all) near a large railway hub en route, called Tarnów.
That turned out to be a grand idea.
The entire 15th century city centre is designed according to the principles of those days: Grand plaza, town hall in the center, all events, pubs and so on around the square.
Just like Kraków, only smaller and more cozy. This was confirmed by the absolutely adorable pride people take here in their local hero, Józef Bem.
Today Tranów is a 125.000 souls, and the sole means of public transport is the bus.
However, before the Nazis came there used to be a tram, and one of Tarnów's main attractions is an almost exact replica of a tramstop of that period. In other words: A sign, a small bench and two "tracks" of stone laid out before it in the road.
All in all Tarnów is a good day's worth of watching around, but they actually do have something unique here: A Roma-museum. They tell people it's the only museum in Europe with a permanent gipsy exposition. Using lively pictures, photographs and live-size dolls they briefly explain the gipsy's origins, their hardships and their way of life. Most of the Roma have settled nowadays (they even have a common flag, a national anthem and a seat in the United Nations), and they have a few genuine Roma-caravans.
Speaking of Roma: On the otherwise nice and cosy camping we enjoyed the pleasures of being accompanied by a few. Noisy campers waking everybody up at 7 am, who didn't pay and who ignored just about every rule on both the camping and in the city (where we first saw them), and who wouldn't take no for an answer, which nobody even tries gives them anymore.
This experience amongst others with the Roma make it hard to understand these people and feel sympathy for their exceptional (external) anti-social behaviour, exploitation and clear presence in sound, scent and colours. However, it's all bad background and very bad upbringing ;-)
Ah well. After 2 days and as many nights (of which one was dry for a change) on that camping (who, besides the Roma, was crawling with French and Dutch people!?) we now move on to Zamość, where we'll meet Irene's family a day later to go to Biłgoraj, a small village nearby, the birthplace of "Grandma Poland".
greetings from Tarnow!